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MR. DOWNS, OF LOUISIANA 



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COMPROMISE RESOLUTIONS 



18 OF C(W 



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IN SENATE, FEBRUARY IS AN^0g^ ~ fr^' * 






The Senate having resumed the consideration of 
the Compromise Resolutions offered by Mr. Clay, 
some days ago, which rue in the following words- 
It being desirable for the peace, concord, and ha-- 
mony ot the Union of these States, to settle and ad- 
just amicably all existing questions of controversy 
between them, arising out of the institution of sla- 
very, upon a fair, equitable, and just basis: therefore, 
1st. Resolved, That California, with suitable boun- 
daries, ought upon her application to be admitted as 
one of the States of this Union, without the imposi- 
tion by Congress of any restriction in respect to trie 
exclusion or introduction of slavery within those 
boundaries.. 

2d. Resolved, That as slavery does not exist by 
law, and is not likely to be introduced into any oi 
the territory acquired by the United States from the 
republic of Mexico, it is inexpedient for Congress 
to provide by law either for its introduction into or 
exclusion from, any part of the said territory ; and 
that appropriate territorial governments ought to be 
established by Congress in all of the said territory 
not assigned as the boundaries of the proposed State 
of California, without the adoption of any restric- 
tion or condition on the subject of slavery. 

3d. Resolved, That the western boundary of the 
btate ot Texas ought to be fixed on the Rio del None 
commencing one marine league from its month and' 
running up that river to the southern line of New 
Mexico; thence with ilrit line east wardly, and so con- 
tinuing in the same direction to the line as estab- 
lished between the United States and Spain, ex- 
cluding any portion ot New Mexico, whether lyin« 
on the east or west of that river 

4th. Resolved, That it be proposed to the State of 
Texas, that the United States will provide for the 
payment of all that portion of the legitimate and 
bona fide public debt of that State, contracted prior 
to its annexation to the United States, and for which 
the duties on foreign imports were pledged by the 
said State to its creditors, not exceeding the sum of 
$' — — > in consideration of the said duties so pledged 
having been no longer applicable to that object after 
the said annexation, but having thenceforward he- 
come payable to the United States: and upon the 
condition also that the said State of Texas shall, by 
some solemn and authentic act of her legislature, of 
a convention, relinquish 10 the United^States any 
claim which ii has to any part of New Mexico. 

5th. Resolved, That it is inexpedient to abolish 
slavery in the Districtof Columbia, whilst that insti- 
ution continues to exist in the State of Maryland, 
twithout the consent of that Siate, without the con- 



sent of the people of the District, and without jnst 
r-ompensation to the owners of slaves within the 
Dis-rict. 

6 -h. But Resolved. That it is expedient to prohibit 
withm the District the slave trade in slaves brought 
into it from State-or places beyond the limit* of the 
District, either to be sold therein as merchandise, or 
to be transported toother markets without the Dis- 
trict of Columbia. 

7th. Resolved, That more effectual provision oujdit 
to be made by law, according to the requirement of 
the constitution, fcr the restitution and delivery of 
•lersons bound to service or labor in any State who 
may escape into any other State or Territory in the 
Union. And 

8th Resolved, That Congress has no power to pro- 
hibitor obstruct the trade in slave.-, between the slave- 
holding States; but that the admission or exclusion 
of slaves brought from one into another of them de- 
pends exclusively upon their own particular laws. 
Mr. DOWNS said: 

Mr. President: Prom the mere reading of the 
resolutions presented by the honorable senator 
from Kentucky, [Air. Clay,] now under consider- 
ation, or from hearing them read, mv impression 
was so strong against them that I thought it my 
duty, unexpected as it was, and unprepared as I 
was, to state some of the strong objections which 
I had against them. I felt, Mr. President, as [ 
now feel, the temerity and embarrassment of such 
a course. 1 felt how inferior and feeble any efforts 
of mine must be, however just the cause in which 
I was i engaged, against the ability, the reputation, 
and the influence of the distinguished individual 
who brought forward the resolutions; and diffident 
as I am, and disposed as I always am to iisten 
rather than to speak, nothing but the most decided 
and irresistible conviction that these resolutions 
would not only aggravate the difficulties in which 
we are involved, but would be decidedly destruc- 
tive to the best interests of the whole country, has 
induced me to do what I would willingly hare 
avoided— engage in a debate which there"* are so 
ma ly much more eminent than myself ready to 
enter into. 

Having declared emphatically my opposition and 
my objection to these resolutions, and not bavin* 
had an opportunity then to discuss them or give 
my reasons, I shall now proceed to state °the 
grounds of my opposition. 



I shall confine my remarks, Mr. President, in 
a great decree to the resolutions themselves, and 
the arguments advanced by the honorable senator 
from Kentucky in support of them. And first, be- 
fore entering 'directly on the resolutions them- 
selves, there are certain preliminary positions as- 
sumed by the honorable senator to which I wish 
to revert' There are three of them. The first one 
is, that all the different questions involved in this 
unhappy controversy should be settled at once. 
However much, sir, I may differ from the honor- 
able senator from Kentucky, [Mr. Clay;] how- 
ever much those who come from the quarter of the 
Union which I do object to his resolutions, it 
was the sreneral, the universal expression of opin- 
ion in all quarters, that, upon this point at least, 
th«>-e could be no difference of opinion from him; 
that that was the proper and only ground upon 
which these difficulties could be adjusted. For 
one, sirj»l conceive that that is the only hope. 

Mr. President, in the debate which took place 
here the other day upon this subject, the honor- 
able and distinguished senator from Mississippi 
[Mr. Foote] has but expressed my astonishment 
and my regret, and not only mine and his own, 
hut that of the whole southern section of this 
Union, that in so short a time, within a few days, 
the honorable senator from Kentucky [Mr. Clay] 
should have changed his position on that point, 
and now, instead of settling the whole question 
quietly, and in a way that would satisfy both North 
and South, he prefers to take up a solitary branch 
of the subject. But I do not propose to discuss 
that question ; the honorable senator from Missis- 
sippi [Mr. Foote] has said all that it deserves. 

There can be no objection, it seems to me, to 
settling all these questions in one bill. We have 
not here, as in some of the States, any constitu- 
tional provision by which legislative acts shall be 
confined to one particular subject. The proposi- 
tion that one of these measures must be disposed 
of at a time would then be very well ; but we 
have no such provision here. It often happens 
that many different measures are incorporated in 
the same bill. We had in the same bill, two years 
ago, a provision for Oregon and California, and 
the settlement of these questions generally. In 
many other cases the same thing has been done ; 
and there is no reason why it could not be done 
here. If it ever is done, it must be done in that 
way, and that way only. 

The next preliminary proposition which the hon- 
orable senator submits is, that compromises should 
be made in such a manner that neither party in this 
unfortunate controversy should yield anything of 
principle. Now, this is a fair proposition. I should 
like to see it carried out. Whether it be practica- 
ble to carry it out or not, is a different matter; but 
if it be practicable, I should l:ke to see it done. 
But I am sorry to say that I cannot find anything 
in the resolutions themselves, or in the explana- 
tion of those resolutions, to convince me that that 
proposition is carried out by them. Why, sir, the 
very second resolution— I do not propose to dis- 
cuss it, but I merely refer to it— is there any 
yielding of principle in that ? The very first hut- 
is, that slavery does not exist by law in New Mex- 
ico and California. Is there not yielding of prin- 
ciple there ? It seems to me this is yielding every- 
thing on one side, and giving up the question en- 
tirely. II this is to be the compromise which is to 



he made, without yielding any principle on either 
side, certainly this resolution does not do it. 

But, sir, there is another of these preliminary 
propositions to which I wish to call attention for 
a moment; and that is, that though in these reso- 
lutions there were many mutual concessions, there 
were yet some to be made by the North, without 
any recompense to be made by the South. Here 
is the proposition : 

"The nest proposition is in respect to the slave- 
holding States. There are resolutions making con- 
cession's to ihem by a class of opposite States, with- 
out any compensation being tendered by them to 
the non-slaveholding States." 

Mr. President, I have studied these resolutions, 
and I have studied still more carefully the able 
speech of the honorable senator from Kentucky ; 
but I must confess that I have been utterly un- 
able to find, according to my understanding of the 
resolutions, any concession to the South without 
compensation being made, on their part, to the 
North. If 1 look to the resolution in reference to 
the District of Columbia— if this principle can be 
predicated of any one of these resolutions, it must 
be of this one— it cannot be said, sir, that much 
is given up to the South. On the contrary, much 
more is given up to the North than to the South 
by this resolution; because, though it admits that 
it is inexpedient to abolish slavery in the District, 
the constitutional power to do so is admitted. And 
really, sir, when I reflect upon the terms in which 
this resolution in reference to the expediency of 
abolishing slavery in the District of Columbia is 
couched, 1 cannot find any concession in it at all f 
to the South, much less any concession without 
compensation on ihe other side. 

I wish to make this preliminary explanation, Mr. 
President, because the weight and the name of the 
distinguished individual who brings them forward 
are so great lhat the very announcement of a con- 
cession might car;y away public opinion in the 
North or in the South, without looking at all into 
the merits of the case. 1 do not wish the announce- 
ment or even the idea to go forth that concession 
is made to the South, and that I and others from 
the South w-ere battling against concession made 
to us. If there is any concession made to the 
South', without any compensating benefit, 1 wish 
to be shown where it is ; and if it cannot be shown 
to exist, I certainly have a right to assume that it 
is not there. 

Mr. President, I now come to the consideration 
of the resolutions themselves ; and the first reso- 
lution relates to the admission of California as a 
State. The resolution held o. t some hopes which 
I am sorry to say the discussion of it has destroyed. 
The resolution says: "That California, with suit- 
able boundaries,"" &c. I thought that something 
mi"ht "row out of that expression, " suitable 
boundaries." 1 thought that in it might be found 
some guaranty of compromise and settlement of the 
matter. I waited anxiously for some development 
on this subject. 

Mr. CLAY. Will the honorable senator allow 
me to avail myself of a moment to make an expla- 
nation with regard to the introduction of those 
words into that resolution? At the time it was 
prepared, I was under the impression that Califor- 
nia herself, in adopting a constitution and propo- 
sing to be admitted into the Union, had presented 
thai instrument— for I had not then received it— 
with a provision that if Congress was not satis- 



3 



fied with the boundaries which she proposed, it 
mi>ht alter those boundaries so as to make them 
conformable to what might be deemed right. 1 say 
I was under an impression that either in the con- 
stitution of California or in the hands of her rep- 
resentatives coming here, there wouli be some in- 
structions expressive of her consent to the modifi- 
cation of her boundaries, so as to make them con- 
form to the will of Congress. It was with that 
purpose, and under that impression, I employed 
those words ; because I do not to this moment pos- 
sess the geographical knowledge which 1 would 
desire as to the nature of the country, the soil, and 
what portion is desert, and what capable of culti- 
vation, to absolutely determine the question. These 
are the circumstances under which I introduced 
these words. Nor am f absolutely committed to 
the admission of California even now, with the 

Frecise boundaries which -she has proposed; but 
am strongly inclined to think we shall have to 
come to them, as the only alternative which is be- 
fore us. 

I hope the honorable senator will pardon me for 
the Interruption. 

Mr. DOWNS. I do not consider, Mr. President, 
that the statement of the honorable senator makes 
much difference in the position of the question. 1 
think it is very immaterial whether the California 
convention authorized a change of bon-ndary or 
not. 1 know very well that the boundary of a 
State once admitted into the Union cannot be 
changed without the consent of that State. But I 
believe it is a principle well established, that the 
boundary of a State may be changed before she 
comes into the Union, even after she has formed 
a constitu'ion. 1 believe it was done in the case 
of Florida, and, unless I am mistaken, it was done 
in the case of Iowa. There is no legal objection, 
it seems Jo me, whether California consents or 
not, if Congress considers it proper and necessary 
that the boundary of this S:ate should be changed. 
I must still express my regret that no proposition 
has been made for a modification of the boundaries 
by that State. 

But now, Mr. President, we are told that the 
people of the South ought not to object to the ad- 
mission of this State into the Union, though she 
has prohibited slavery ; that that being her act, and 
not the act of Congress, we have no right to com- 
plain ; that it is in accordance with opinions ad- 
vanced by many at the South heretofore, that these 
things should be left with the people. 

Well, Mr. President, there would be a great 
deal in an argument like that, if this question 
had been left fairly to the people, without any 
extraneous influences, without operations from 
abroad. If this question had been left to the peo- 
ple of California, there might have been some ( 
weight in the argument; but as it is, I consider 
there is none at all. So far from the consti- 
tution with which they present themselves to be 
admitted into the Union, with a prohibition of 
slavery, being the resu't of a spontaneous move- 
ment of the people of California, I believe it was 
concocted elsewhere, and carried out there by in- 
fluences from other places, and not left to the 
people of California alone. And though wt 
cannot have the direct and positive evidence of tin 
fact, we have circumstances sufficient to lead 
necessarily and irresistibly to that conclusion. 

Now, sir, apart frond all public considerations, 
let us look at the question itself. It is said, on 



all hands, and I believe it is pretty correct that 
in a larg;e portion of California, at least, slavery 
would not go. It is contended also by thoa^ 
who contend that slavery should not go there^. . 
that slavery is already prohibited there by law. "4 
do not believe that is correct. I believe the arsu- 
mentsof the honorable senator from Georgia [Mr. 
Berrien] and the honorable senator from Miss- 
issippi [Mr. Davis] are conclusive on that sub- 
ject. But still, those who hold ground adverse to 
us have their opinion, and they think these two 
propositions are true : that slavery is not allowed 
there by law, and, if it was allowed, it would 
never go there, for there are no negroes there. 

I would ask, Mr. President, how came Califor- 
nia to decide so unanimously and decidedly that 
slavery should not go there ? How came it that 
there was no opposition ? It was known that 
one-half of this Union was apposed to the adop- 
tion of such a prohibition, which had also some 
interest in those Territories; and yet, without 
any object to be attained — according to the argu- 
ment of gen lemen on the other side — what 
could have induced tbern to adopt, and to adopt 
unanimously, a prohibition which already exist- 
ed? Why, sir, sometimes evidence is so strong 
that it proves too much. The fact which gentle- 
men rely upon, that this constitution was adopted 
unanimously, proves that there are circumstances 
connected with the case which we do not know. 
Do you think that southern men — and there are 
many there from the South ; some I know from 
my own State, and some from Virginia, and other 
southern States — stood by, during the formation 
of that constitution, and, without any object, or 
reason, or demand, abandoned all the principles 
which they before entertained, and, for no ob- 
ject or purpose, came forward, and established 
a principle there which they have been fighting 
against all their lives in the United States? I 
think it is very improbable. The very fact, there- 
fore, of the unanimity, far from satisfying me 
that this was the spontaneous act of the peo- 
ple, proves more clearly that this constitution 
was adopted to order, and not spontaneously. 

But, Mr. President, we are not left to mere 
inference on this subject. There are facts and 
public documents which bear out the assumption 
that this movement was not the spontaneous 
movement of the people of California. There have 
been some strange, some most unaccountable 
movements in this matter. You know, sir, and 
the country knows, the difficulties we have had 
on this question. We all recollect the efforts 
which have been repeatedly made by both the 
North and South to compromise this question ; it 
is not aecessary to go over them all ; but I wish 
for a moment to call attention to the action of 
Congress, at the last session, on this subject, 
f mean, sir, the amendment offered to the appro- 
priation bill by the honorable senator from Wis- 
consin, called the Walker amendment. After 
everything eise had failed — after it was well 
ascertained that neither the bill reported by the 
honorable senator from Illinois [Mr. Douglas] 
nor any other proposition was likely to pass, 
near the close of the session, when there was 
every probability that this matter would lie over, 
•hat no provision would be made for the govern- 
ment of the Territory, that California would 
set up for herself and be lost to the United States, 
and that a perfect state of anarchy would prevail 



4 



there — to avoid this evil, the majority of this 
body a^rctd to take steps for the purpose of adopt 
ing fdme compromise and arrangement that would 
satisfy both parties. After a good deal of discus- 
KjHPj the principle was adopted. That amend- 
ment — the Walker amendment — is fresh in the 
recollection of gentlemen. I shall not take time 
to revert to it, or to read the amendment; but in- 
stead of making provisions by an act which the 
North or the South might object to, it was pro- 
posed, as a compromise, to vest in the President 
full power to organize Territories and carry on 
the government of California— not by special pro- 
vision made by Congress, but by giving full 
and plenary powers to the President of the Uni- 
ted States to do so. As a new President had just 
come in, it was natural that the people should 
confide in him. They did confide in him. It was 
thought that the strength of his name, and 
fame, and popularity, would enable him to set- 
tle this question, if anybody could settle it — that 
he might, coming in with the power of a new 
President, (and their power is always greater 
•when they come in than at any other time,) settle 
this question. 

Now, although he might not have settled it to 
the perfect satisfaction of every one, yet it was 
thought he misfit settle it, and save unnecessary 
agitation. The Senate on that occasion did what 
has rarely if ever been done before, and perhaps 
never would have been done, except under the 
most extraordinary circumstances. They passed 
that amendment to give to the President of the 
United States plenary powers — I had almost said 
dictatoiial powers — to settle this question; and 
yet what was done ? I do not intend to embark 
in any party discussion on this subject. On this 
question I have nothing to do with party. It is 
above all party considerations. It has almost 
lost its connexion with all party. I believe that 
at the South, "party" is not thought of at all, in 
connexion with the matter. And, sir, T would 
least of all do anything that might tend to les- 
sen the influence which the administration might 
exercise upon it. But it is a grave question, and 
it is neces-ary that we should go to the foun- 
dation of it ; that we should know the facts of 
the case before we judge of it. Now, if this 
resolution had been passed — if it had been adopt- 
ed and carried through the other House — this 
whole controversy might have been settled ; for, 
whatever the new President might have done, the 
matter would have been acquiesced in, and the 
people, upon the whole, would have been satis- 
fied. But, unfortunately, this was not the case. 
This resolution was sent to the House of Repre- 
sentatives, and was defeated there. And what, 
sir, is the history of that defeat ? I repeat it, sir, 
it is unexampled in this or in any other country. 
On this great question, which had then been agi- 
tating the country to its very foundation, and 
which was likely to continue to agitate it, unless 
settled, the democratic party in this body hushed 
all party clamor, waived all objection which they 
had had before ; they silenced all the dictates of 
party, and united with the whigs in giving full 
and complete powers to the President on this 
subject. It was taken to the other House, and 
you know its history. It was defeated there. 
Had it been there defeated by the democrats, 
they would have given a reason for its defeat. 
They might have thought it was giving too much 



power, too much eclat. They might have im- 
agined it would buiid up the whig party so 
impregnably that it never could be removed from 
power. I could even have imagined the case 
of the whigs and other gentlemen opposing it, 
because they might have thought, as some of them 
did on another occasion, that the power of the 
President was sufficient to settle it. But I never 
could have imagined — the whole world never 
could have imagined — that this resolution, which 
gave all the power to the President, should be 
defeated — defeated, too, by his own friends. Sir, 
1 shall not go into the history of the event. The 
press gave it long ago. It has since been re- 
capitulated on this floor. It never has been de- 
nied that it was defeated by the honorable sen- 
ator from New York, [Mr. Seward,] accom- 
panied by a gentleman (Mr. Ewing) who, a 
day or two afterwards, became a prominent mem- 
ber of the President's cabinet. 

Now, sir, it has become the fashion to talk 
a great deal about this Union. It is the fash- 
inn to decry the South for agitating this ques- 
tion. It has become the fashion to throw the 
blame of all these troubles on the South. But, 
sir, if there be any danger to this Union, it is 
not to be attributed to the South — to those who 
have sought, on so many occasions, to settle 
this question ; but it is to be attributed in a great 
measure to the extraordinary, unaccountable, and 
monstrous intrusions of the administration and 
its friends to defeat this measure. Had it been 
adopted, the question would have been settled, 
the people would have been satitsisfied, and the 
country would never have been brought to its pres- 
ent state of agitation and danger of disunion. 

I hot>e disunion may never come. I shall strug- 
gle as long and as earnestly as any man to prevent 
its coming; but if it does come, I shall proclaim 
it as coming, in a great degree, and that its pre- 
vention at least failed, from this act, and this act 
alone. Well, sir, we have had troubles on this 
subject before. We have frequently had troubles 
and excitements. The characteristic distinction 
between our country and the countries of Europe 
is, that when we have troubles of this kind, and 
an excitement which nobody can see the end of, 
they are solved quietly, and without the least dis- 
turbance, by a machinery which we have, and 
which they have not, and that is the ballot-box. 

In 1S-J4, the country was about as much excited 
on the Texas annexation question as it is now on 
the subject of California. Resolutions were passed 
by legislatures North and South. It then hap- 
pened to be the turn of the northern States to talk 
about disunion; and they declared — I do not know 
how many States — if Texas was annexed, that 
they would withdraw from the Union. Even in 
his public speeches and addresses, a gentleman 
(Mr. Adams) who had been honored with the 
presidency of the United States declared that an- 
nexation would be tantamount to dissolution of 
the Union. There were then great excitement 
and danger when the election of November, 1844, 
came on. While this question was raging, the 
candidates did, on that occasion, what public men 
should always do, and as it had been their habit 
previously to do — they declared their opiniosson 
these subjects, and on the questions which were 
submitted to the people. One of the candidates 
was in favor of the annexation of Texas, the 
other against it. It was a warm contest, as such 



contests ever are, but peaceable, and led to no 
difficulties. What was done ? What was the re- 
sult? Why, the very next Congress after the 
fight at the ballot-box, the Texas question was 
settled quietly. There was nothing to do hut to 
call up the bill for the admission of Texas, and it 
was admitted, as a matter of course, as much so 
. as the inauguration of the President, because the. 
people had settled the question. If this had been 
the case in The last election on the question of the 
admission of California, and grounds had been 
taken, clear and distinct, and the people had voted 
on it, Congress would have acquiesced in it. But 
that was not ihe case, at least on one side. But 
the history of that matter is before the country. 
cJ Wljl not P ursue jt here- At any rate, one 
of the unfortunate causes of this difficulty was, 
that grounds were not taken on this subject by 
one of (he candidates. If they had been, the dif- 
ficulty could have been settled, and the people 
would have acquiesced in it. I beg that those 
■who are connected with the administration will 
consider, when they reproach us with sentiments 
of disunion, that the world and posterity will de- 
cide that the first movement in favor of disunion 
came from them, and in the way I have described. 
Well, Mr. President, we lost that opportunity 
of settling ihe question. The Walker amend- 
ment was rejected. What was the consequence ? 
What was the next move ? Congress adjourned 
without doing anything. It is well known that 
in the course of the previous discussions, the 
opinion was announced that the difficulty mi«-ht 
be obviated by the people of California, if they 
adopted a State constitution and were admitted 
into the Union. I believe it is a fact that some 
members of Congress wrote to their friends in 
California on this subject. I myself said to my 
friends going there, that if the people themselves 
should meet and make a constitution, I would 
agree to it. But it is because the people were not 
permitted to act spontaneously, hut that others in- 
terfered, that I am now opposed to its admission. 
The next move was the extraordinary embassy of 
Mr. King— a gentleman from Georgia— to Cali- 
fornia. Now, what is strange about the act of the 
administration with regard to the Walker amend- 
ment and this movement is. that when Congress 
ottered them full power, and authorized them to 
do everything necessary, they rejected it. They 
faid. No ; we will not haveanv action of Congress 
in the matter, and defeated it. The very next! 
day, or soon after Congress adjourned, they as- 1 
sumed not only the powers which would "have 
been given them by Congress, but other and ex- 
traordinary powers! 

How is this to be accounted for ? They would 
not lake any authorization from Congress, as we 
offered them. No; they would not take it. They 
instructed their leading men here to defeat it"; 
they declined any action on the part of Congress; 
but the moment Congress was out of sight, they 
sent out this ambassador to California, toexercise 
powers far more extraordinary than would or 
could have been given them by "Congress. 

Well, sir, it has become the fashion to deny 
this. 1 have seen it frequently denied in the press 
and elsewhere; perhaps it will be denied upon 
this floor; but, sir, the facts are too strong to be 
got over. It is rather a wonder that, in a trans- 
action so unexampled, so culpable, so unprece- 
dented, any traces of it have been left on the re- 



cords of this government. Attempts have been 
made to conceal it; but, sir, the ways of Provi- 
dence are such that the very cunninge*t design 
to conceal crimes very often leads to their detec- 
tion. So it has been in this instance. The very 
desire to conceal has led to the discovery. Look 
at the instructions of the Secretary of State to Mr. 
King. There never was a stronger attempt to 
conceal. Perhaps that distinguished individual 
had the idea ot Talleyrand— that language is not 
•made to express ideas, but to conceal them. Per- 
haps that might be a very good doctrine in the 
hands of Talleyrand or such a man ; but it seems 
to have worked wonderfully bad in the hands of 
the Secretary of State ; for, far from concealing 
his ideas, it reveals them about as distinctly as if 
he had written them in so many words. 

Here is the celebrated despatch to Mr! Kin"-. It 
commences in these words : 

"You are fully possessed of the President's view, 
and can, with, propriety, suggest to the people of 
California the adoption of measures best calculated 
to i<ive them effect." 

Now, Mr. President, what were the views of 
the President ? They are not disclosed in the 
despatch. They do not appear on the files of the 
Secretary of State. They were communicated 
only to Mr. King. "You are possessed of the 
views of the President;" but what are these views ? 
They are not before us, sir. Is it customary, 
sir, to leave these instructions to the memory of 
ambassadors and persons going out on missions 
of this kind ? Mr. King was the confidential 
agent of the government. Why conceal any 
communication from him ? Why riot give him the 
means to refresh his memory"? On, no ! He 
was "possessed of the views of the President," 
and therefore they were not contained in the des- 
patch he sent. 

Now, I ask, what were these views ? The im- 
pression upon my mind is so strong that I cannot 
doubt what they were. One bf the views to ne 
impressed upon the people of California was, that 
they should adopt such a provision as would suit 
the strongest party here, and, therefore, that they 
should prohibit slavery, so thet that question 
should be decided and put out of the way. That, 
sic, is the proper inference, if that was" the only 
language in this celebrated despatch. But that is 
not the only language. Let us proceed a little 
further. Here is the despatch itself, relating to 
this [ioint: 

"Vou are fully possessed of the President's view?, 
and can with propriety magest to tbe people or Cal- 
ifornia the adoption of measures best calculated to 
giye ihem effect. Thette meaturtg must, of course, 
originate solely tpith themselvts. Assure them of the 
sincere desire of ihe Executive of the United States 
to protect, and defend them in the formation of any 
government, republican in its character, hereafter 
10 be submitted to Congress, which shall be /he result 
uf their own deliberate choice; hut let it. be, at the 
sunie time, dtsiinct/y understood /•?/ thfim that the 
plan of such a gov mweni mu gt originate with them- 
selves, and without 'he interference of the Executive. 

"The iawsofCalifomiearid New Mexico, as they 
existed at the conclusion of the treaty of Guadalupe 
Hidalgo, regulating ihe ielations of the inhabitants 
with each other, will ncessanly remain in force, in 
the Ter/itories Their relations with the former 
government have been dissolved, and new relations 
created oetween them and the government of the 
United States ; but the existing laws, regulating the 
relations of the people with each other, will con- 



6 



tinue until others lawfully enacted shall supersede 
them. Our naval and military commanders on ihese 
stations will be fully instructed to co operate with 
the friends of order and good government, >o far a> 
their co-operation c;m be useful and proper." 

Now, Mr. President, I think this solves the 
mystery which the public have been a good deal 
puzzled about heretofore; and that is about the 
authorship of that celebrated passage in the Presi- 
dent's message, "ail the world and the rest of 
mankind ." It. is not only the same idea repeated, 
but the expression is actually mentioned by the 
Secretary of State three times in the same para 
graph. They are to make a constitution ; but lei 
it be in their own name: the President will pro- 
tect them in the matter. You have his views; 
but make the constitution according to your own 
wishes. The military will protect you; but make 
the constitution according to your own will. 
Now, Mr. President, where is the necessity for 
these three disclaimers in one short sentence.' 
This sir, explains them all. It cannot be con- 
tradicted that the agent understood it well. I do 
not know whether we can get at positive evi- 
dence; but, if any doubt should be entertained, I 
should like to have the committee to whom we 
refer this matter invested with power to send for 
persons and papers, and bring this messenger and 
the Secretary of State before it, and ask them 
what were the view's of the President on the 
subject. 

This sentence in this despatch of the Secretary 
of State must be sufficient to satisfy any unpreju- 
diced mind that Mr. Kins went there with orders 
to moot this tiling, and have the matter made up 
in the manner in which it was We are greatly 
in want of information that we ought to have 
upon this subject. We are situated half across 
the world from California: so that much infor- 
mation will be concealed which we might other- 
wise have got. I fear there have been at lea*t 
attempts to conceal this malter, and perhaps at- 
tempts to withhold information which we might 
have got. I have seen no journal of the California 
convention. There has been here, as I under- 
stand, for a month or more, a debate, or rather a 
report of the proceedings of that convention; bu' 
1 have not yet seen it published. We are in 
want of information on the subject; and if we 
nad it, and the whole facts were unfolded, per- 
haps we should have ample proof, not only that 
Mr. King went upon that mission, but that he 
had orders to can} it out, and that it was carried 
out accordingly. 

But, Mr. President, I am not done wi'h that 
despatch; that is only a pait of it. Hear what 
he says in the next paragraph : 

"The laws of California and New Mexico, as 
they existed at. the conclusion of thn treaty of Guad- 
alupe Hidalgo, regulating the relations of the in- 
habitants with each other, will necessarily remain 
in force in the Territories.'' 



Now, Mr. President, here is announced the 
very fact in controversy, that the laws of Mexico 
which prohibited slavery there extended over 
those Territories; that there was no slavery there. 
That was one of the views of the President — one 
of the views on which this measuie should be 
carried out. Theie cannot, be a doubt, then, 
that this whole movement took place in conse- 
quence of instructions from here. 

But, Mr. President, if this were not the case, 



there are other reasons why the people of the 
South should not, and never will willingly, con- 
sent to receive this State, even if it was a spon- 
taneous movement of the people, without any 
action of the government. It was a case in which 
one-half of the Union had no opportunity of 
being heard ; you took snap-judgment on them. 
Nine-tenths of the white men who wished to go 
there could not do it. It is much more expensive 
to transport slaves. We have not the ships and 
the means ; we have not been growing rich out of 
this confederacy. You of the North have more 
stores of wealth to stock your expeditions We 
must travel by land in our own carts and wa- 
gons. We cannot go on so large a scale as the 
North. We cannot build whole houses and put 
them on board ships and take them to California. 
We are not so rich as all that; and the conse- 
quence has been that, even if slavery could be 
admitted by law, those who had no slaves and 
did not want them got there first, and took pos- 
session. Thev have been there but a short time; 
and I believe that the honorable and distinguished 
senators who have been elected there— both of 
whom I esteem highly, and one of whom was a 
citizen of my own State, a gentleman whom I 
would do anything that a sense of duty would 
allow to gratify, either in respect to convenience 
or pleasure, and on whose account I regret 
exceedingly that I feel bound to oppose the ad- 
mission of this new State — these gentlemen had 
not been there scarcely a year when they were 
elected. Out of many individuals who voted in 
that body, a large portion of them had not been 
there six months. Well, the government being 
constituted under such circumstances, it is not 
correct to say that this is an expression of the peo- 
ple of California, or that the different parts of the 
United States hail a fair proportion. Not only 
w as a portion of the people, enabled to go there, 
while others could not, but a. large portion of 
the people there did not participate in that move- 
ment. There must have been within the last 
eighteen months 100,000 emigrants, not ordinary 
emigrants, but men who have gone there and 
scattered out over the country. The very fact 
that San Francisco has some twenty or thirty 
thousand inhabitants shows that the emigration 
is of men who went there well qualified to vote 
on this subject, as on all others. But, notwith- 
standing the fact that there were 70,000 or 80,000 
inhabitants there before the emigration, and some 
100,000 emigrants — men, too, who had as much 
right to vote as those who did vote — we find not 
even the ordinary proportion of voters for such an 
amount of population. There were only some 
15,00R who voted on this constitution. Many 
were engaged in the mines, who went there to 
make money, and did not care a straw about 
the constitution. 

If a system of suffrage had been adopted by 
competent authority, and elections properly held 
under it, it would' have been less objectionable, 
But. sir, this course was not adopted in this case, 
and I cannot consent, as far as my vote goes, to 
support the admission of California, with this con- 
stitution, as a separate measure. 

I believe, sir, that we have as yet no expres- 
sion—no free expression— of the opinions of the 
people of California. Whenever that comes. I, sir, 
shall yield to it. In the acts for their admission, 
introduced last session, we provided what per- 



7 



sons should vote, how the election should he 
carried on, and how temporary authority should 
be exercised. In fact, although the bills an- 
nounced the admission of California, still t 1 ey 
made the usual provisions for brkjsring Territo- 
ries into the Union, although not quite in the 
ordinary manner. The usual mode of admitting 
States was first to authorize territorial govern- 
ment, and afterwards to authorize, by a special ac> 
of Congress, the people to form a constitution, 
and then admit them; still there were many ex- 
ceptions to that rule, and the practice on the 
subject was therefore substantially complied w.ith. 

But, sir, those who take the other side of the 
question think thev have caught us; that they 
have got us, because we preferred a similar prin- 
ciple. Why, sir, f , myself, as well as the honora- 
ble senator from Illinois, [Mr Douglas,] pro- 
posed a bill dtiring the last session of Congress 
for the admission of California; and that may, 
perhaps, be urged as a precedent in this case ; but 
it is totally different. We did not propose to bring 
in promiscuously a crowd of people from all quar- 
ters of the worid, of all colors ; that they should 
form a constitution, and demand admittance. No, 
sir; many went there with a desire that the con- 
stitution should be made in a particular way, and 
they took the malter into their own hands Well, 
under these circumstances, can it be said that the 
people adopted their own constitution ? Can it 
be expected that we are to be deterred by such a 
plea as that from pursuing the course which 
right and justice requite of us? No, sir; this is 
no example of such a principle as we profess. It 
is a monstrosity. It is such a thing as never did 
occur on the face of the earth before, and is not 
likely to occur again ; for another California will 
not be discovered. 

Well, Mr President, 1 have another objection. 
However plausible the argument may be ib.at 
these people have a right to form a constitution 
for themselves, they have no right to extend it 
over the whole country. Let them include in it, 
if they will, Sari Francisco and the mines, Cali- 
fornia proper, west of the Sierra Nevada, where 
they have settlements — where they dig their gold 
and make their fortunes; but, I ask you, what 
right they have to extend their constitution over 
300 or 400 miles across the Sierra Nevada to the 
river Colorado, where a white man never lived, 
and which none of them ever saw ? Have they 
that right ? Where is there a precedent for such 
a course ? Not only do they seek to frame a con- 
stitution to protect their cities, and enable them 
to dig their gold and carry on the commerce of the 
world; hut they must spread their wings over 
territories where no white man dwells, half 
across the great basin, because, though they have 
found no cold there yet, they may still do so. 

Now, if they had come in with the usual 
boundaries contemplated in such cases — the 
boundary suggested by the minority of the Com- 
mittee on the Judiciary last year — if they had 
contemplated proper boundaries, and a very large 
State at that, but a State for which there was 
some reason, embracing that country between 
the Pacific and the Siena Nevada; or if they had 
adopted the plan proposed by the senator from 
Illinois, [Mr. Douglas,] which though it pro- 
posed the admission of the whole as territory, 
still there was a provision in the bill allowing 



the boundary to be reduced— I would not object 
to its admission on this ground. 

There is no such provision in the constitution. 
Once admitted into the Union, it has this whole, 
this broad extent of country. Was there any ne- 
cessity for that ? Is not this a strong reason why 
Congress should exercise the power, even if they 
approve this constitution, to limit the boundaries — 
that the people of California should not spread 
over all the extent of territory which they ask for 
here ? But, sir, there is another part of tne sud- 
jeot on which 1 will dwell for a moment. 

So far as I recollect, there is no provision in 
that constitution declaring that the public ilomain 
in that State shall belong to the government of 
the United States. It has been the general opinion 
that, whenever territories are admitted as States, 
thev shall make a stipulation that the public do- 
main shall remain to the United States. It was 
done so in mv own State, and I believe the same 
rule has been followed in all others. Now, admit 
California without any such provision, and the 
public domain will forever be beyond the control 
of the United States It is a necessary conse- 
quence; it is a legal consequence; you cannot 
make any such stipulation afterwards, and. if you 
could, in all probability the people of California 
wo'ild not agree to it. 

Now, sir, are you so liberal as to let these peo- 
ple, thus situated — emigrants from the Sand- 
wich Islands, from China, from South America, 
from the whole world, of all classes, and from 
every clime where a portion of our own people 
have been — are you so liberal as not only to give 
them power to make for themselves just such a 
constitution as they please, but will you also 
invest them with the public domain and all tha 
gold which is thereto be found? There must 
be something strange in the case to sanction a 
measure so absurd in its charatcter. The gentle- 
man from North Carolina [Mr. Badger] said the 
other day that a proposition was made here, when 
the Mexican treaty was under consideration, to 
yield up all this territory to Mexico ; that that 
proposition was rejected, and, that had that not 
been the case, this evil would not have oc- 
curred. I was strongly inclined to tell the gentle- 
man, if he would make that proposition now, 
perhaps it would be more acceptable. It is a 
melancholy fact, so far as the South is concerned, 
that while you say you do not want this territory, 
you propose to give the whole of it up, out of 
the control of the general government. Yet, sir, 
you will not allow the South this small portion 
of it, or the right to go there south of '36 deg. 30 
min. north latitude. 

Mr. SEWARD. Thehonorable senator staled, 
if I understood him, that in the constitution of 
California there is no provision that the public 
domain shall remain as public property of the 
United States. I beg leave to call his attention to 
the second section of the ninth article, where, if 
he does not find the express declaration that it 
shall so remain, he will find that there is a dis- 
tinct recognition of the fact that it does. 

Mr. DOWNS. Will the honorable senator be 
good enough to read the section to which he al- 
ludes ? 

Mr. SEWARD read from the second section 
of the ninth article of the constitution of Cali- 
fornia, and from the fourth section, as follows : 



8 



"Sec. 2. The legislature shall encourage, by all 
suitable means, the promotion of intellectual, scien- 
tific, moral, and agricultural improvement The 
proceeds of all lands that may be granted by the 
united States to this State for the support of 
schools, which may be told or disposed of, and 
the five hundred thousand acres cf land granted to 
the new States under an act of Congress distributing 
The proceeds of the public lands among the several 
States of the Union, approved A. D. 18-11, and all 
estates of deceased persons who may have died 
without leaving a will or heir, and also such per 
cent, as may be granted by Congress on the sale 
of lands in this State, shall be and remain a per- 
petual fund, the interest of which, together with 
all the rents of the unsold lands, and such other 
means as the legislature may provide, shall be 
inviolably appropriated to the support of common 
schools throughout the State." 

"Sec. 4. The legislature shall take measures for 
the protection, improvement, or other disposition 
of such lands as have been or may hereafter be 
reserved or granted by the United States, or any 
person or persons, to this State, for the use of a 
university," &:c. 

Mr. FOOTE. I understand that there was a 
special ordinance adopted to secure the public 
domain; and T feel bound to bear this testimo- 
ny, that, throughout the debates in the conven- 
tion, there was a recognition of the power of the 
United States by all the speakers. I know my 
friend does not mean to do injustice, and there- 
fore I have stated this fact. 

Mr. DOWNS. There is another question, sir, 
which ought not to be overlooked, which deserves 
to be taken into the account in the consideration 
of this subject ; and that is, What is the present 
situation ol California ? Suppose we do not adopt 
that State, and receive her into the Union: is she 
a part of the United States ? I doubt it, sir. She 
has formed a constitution and government. The 
acting governor there, General Riley — acting for 
the President of the United States— has formal- 
ly, and by proclamation, delivered that govern- 
ment into the hands ot the new government just 
formed. What is she ? She is a State. She is 
out of the Union. Gentlemen ought to be some- 
what cautious as to the manner in which they 
give their sanction to proceedings so extraordinary 
as these. But if all these objections to the ad- 
mission of this State into the Union were re- 
moved, there are other objections, insuperable 
objections, which will not admit, for a moment, 
of the thought of admitting California into the 
Union at this time. 

Mr. President, in the formation of this Union 
originally, there was necessarily, and from the 
very circumstances of the case, great irregular- 
ity in the size of the Slates. We took them then 
as we found them. It was warmly contested in 
the convention whether some of the very small 
States should he admitted into the Union upon 
an equality with the greater or not. It was very 
nearly the cause of breaking up the convention, 
for it was thought impossible ever to reconcile 
the differences of opinion upon this very ground. 
And I believe that it was through the mediation 
of Benjamin Franklin principally that a recon 
cilialion was effected, and the convention came 
together again and deliberated anew. Great ir- 
regularity, I say, existed as to the size of the 
old States, because the thirteen Stales were ad- 
mitted as originally formed ; but, in regard to new 
States, the practice of the government has always 



seemed to require that something like uniformity 
in their size should be observed ; not that they 
should be absolutely equal in extent, in disregard 
of natural boundaries and of the geographical 
situation of ihe country, but, other things being 
considered, that there should be something like 
uniformity in regard to superficial extent; be- 
cause it must be remembered, that although there 
may be at first but a sparse and limited popula- 
tion, after the lapse of a few years the popula- 
tion might become very numerous. Very great 
changes may take place in this respect; there- 
fore it appears to me that due regard should be 
had to the territorial extent of the State. I have 
before me a valuable document, in which is ex- 
hibited the comparative size of the different States 
composing this Union. It is not necessary to read 
the whole of it, but I will ask permission to re- 
fer to a few of the statements contained in it. 

These tables are taken from a map among the 
documents accompanying the last annual mes- 
sage of President Polk, and are therefore official 
and authentic: 
Table exhibiting the areas of the several States and 

Territories of the United States in square miles and 

acres. 



Square 
miles. 



FREE STATES. 

Maine 

Vermont 

New Hampshire 

Massachusetts 

Rhode Island 

Connecticut 

New York 

New Jersey 

Pennsylvania 

Ohio 

Indiana 

Illinois 

Michigan 

Iowa , 

Wisconsin 

Total of the free States 

SLAVE STATES. 

Delaware 

Maryland 

Virginia 

North Carolina 

Soutli Carolina 

Georgia 

Kentucky 

Tennessee 

Louisiana 

Mississippi 

Alabama 

Missouri 

Arkansas 

Florida 

Total of the slave State 

Texas 

District of t.'olu m hia 



35,000 

8,000 

8,030 

7.250 

1,200 

4,750 

46,000 

6,851 

47,000 

39,964 

33,809 

55,405 

56,243 

50,914 

53,9-24 



325,520 
c50 



22,400,000 

5,120,000 

5.139,200 

4,640,000 

708,000 

3,040,000 

29,440,000 

4,384,640 

30,080,000 

25,576,960 

21,637,760 

35,459,200 

35,995,580 

32,584,960 

34,511,360 



<rt54.340 


290.777,600 


2,120 


1,356,800 


11,000 


7,040,000 


61,352 


39,205,280 


45,500 


29,120,000 


28,000 


I7;920,000 


58,000 


37,120,000 


37.680 


24,115,200 


44,000 


28,160.000 


46,431 


29,715,840 


47,147 


30,174,080 


50,722 


32,462,080 


67,380 


43,123.200 


52,198 


33,406,720 


59,268 


37,931,520 


1610,798 


370,910,720 



208,332,800 
32,000 



TEXASIN THREE DIVISIONS. Sq. miles. 
1st. Between the Sabine and Nueces rivers, 

south of Eneenada river, (T proper,) 148,569 
2d. Between the Nueces and Rio Grande, 

south of Ensenada river - - 52,018 

3d. North of Paso and the Ensenada river 

(Santa Fe country) - - - 124,933 



Total 



325,520 



1st. Number of miles of const acquired by Sq. nils 
the annexation of Texas, from the 
month of the Sabine to the Rio Grande 

2d. Number of miles of coast, on the Pacific, 
inHndin? Oregon and California. In 
Californ--, 970; Oregon, 500; Straits 
of Juan de Fuca, 150 - 



400 



1.G20 



Total, including Texas - 



2.020 



Territory north and west of the. Mississippi river and 
east of the Rocky mountains. 



Bounded north by 49 dog. north 
latitude, east by Mississippi river, 
south by State of Iowa and Platte 
river, and west by Rocky moun- 
tains ." 

Indian territory, situated west of 
the States of Arkansas and Mis- 
souri, and south of the Platte 
river 

Old Northwest Territory, balance 
remaining east of the Mississippi 
river and north of Wisconsin.... 

Total of old territory, and organized 
into Stau-s 



Square 
miles. 



723,248 

248,851 
22.336 



d994,435 



Acres. 



462,878,720 

159,264,640 
14,295,040 



636,438,400 



Territory exclusive of old territory east of tke Rocky 

mountains. 



Oregon 

California .. 
New Mexico 
Texas* 

Total 



Square Acres, 
miles. I 



Square 
miles. 



341,463 218,535,300 b454,340 

448,691! 287,163,240! 6610,798 

77,387 1 49,537,680 c50 

325,520 , 208,332,800 (1994,435 



290,777,600 

390,910,730 

32.000 

636,438^400 



1,193,031: 763,555,040, 2,059,6«3|1,318,158,720 



* Taking the Rio Grande as the boundary. 

Miles. 

Leneth of the Atlantic coast to the month of St. 

Mary's river ----- 1,450 

Length of the Atlantic coast from St. Mary's 

to Cape of Florida . - - - 450 

Length oi the Gulf coast to the mouth of Sa- 
bine 1,200 



Total 3,100 

The new States are larger than some of the old 
ones. So von see there has been something; like 
uniformity in the new States; and this uniformity 
should he kept tin Missouri i< the largest State 
at present, except Texas, which is to he divided 
into four States. But here is an application for 
the admission of one three times as large as Mis- 
souri. 

"The area of the State ot California, according 
to an estimate made on Preuss's map of 184S, is 
158,000 square miles. 

Estimated surfaces of other States. Sq 
California is about 3.'^ times larger than Louisiana, 
'• " 2Jtf " " Missouri, 

" " 4% " " Kentucky, 

" " -i.% " " Virginia, 

« « 3% < : " New York, 

« « 3>£ " " Penns\lva., 

The average distance of the seacoa c t from 
the eastern boundary of the new State 
of California, is - 

Total lentrth from north to south - 

Length of seacoast - 



miles. 
46V31 

67,380 
37,680 
61.352 
46.000 
47,000 



212 miles. 
7G4 " 
970 " 



The surface of Deseret, estimated'on Preu3s's 

map, as follows: 

Sq. miles. 

Part situated in Oregon ... 20,000 

" " California Territory - 340,000 
" within proposed limits of State of 

California 70,270 



Total 



430,270 



But that is not all, by a great deal. If this were 
the only objection, perhaps we might get over 
it. She" not only includes this quantity of terri- 
tory, hut she takes in an immense seacoast. It is 
desirable that as many States as possible should 
have a portion of seacoast. I will refer for a mo- 
ment to the comparative extent of seacoast of the 
States of this Union and that which is claimed by 
the new State of California. 

From the table and map referred to, it appears 
that— 

1. The seacoast of California is nearly three- 
fourths the length of the whole twelve old Atlan- 
tic States, (Pennsylvania having no seacoast.) 

2. It is nearly half the extent of the whole At- 
lantic coast to Cape Florida. 

3. It is nearly one-third the length of the whole 
coast of the United States on the Atlantic and 
Gulf of Mexico. 

4. It is nearly one- fourth the length of the 
whole seacoast of the United States on the Atlan- 
tic, Gulf of Mexico, and Pacific coasts, embra- 
cing (with California and Oregon) twenty States 
or Territories fronting on the sea. 

5. It is equal in length to the whole Atlantic 
coast, from the southern boundary of Georgia to 
Cape Cod, in Massachusetts, (all the old Atlantic 
States, except one and a half;) and commencing 
at the north it would extend to the middle ot 
North Carolina, and, not including Maine, a new 
State, to the middle of South Carolina; also ex- 
tending over the whole Atlantic old States, except 
one and a half States. 

Why, this is monstrous. But if you look at it in 
another light, it is still more monstrous. Are you 
willing to'make this monstrous difference ? What 
would have been thought if such a proposition 
had been made when this Union was formed ? 
Suppose it had heen proposed to admit a State 
comprehending nearly the entire coast? This is 
a proposition as ungracious as that would have 
been — nay, it is more so; for there would have 
been an outlet both at the North and at the South 
for the interior States, but in this case there is no 
outlet ; it completely shuts the door upon all the 
territory back of it; and we know not what the 
population of that territory may hereafter be: in 
all probability there may he gold mines found 
there as rich as those of California. These peo- 
ple, then, who have squatted down on the coast, 
may, if they choose, shut out all those who shall 
hereafter occupy the interior. 

The average length of seacoast of all the States 
is 17 2 miles, including Florida, which may be 
railed a peninsula ; and not including that State, 
the average length of seacoast is 147 miles; so 
that California has a seacoast six and a half times 
larger thaii the average seacoast of the other 
Sta'es, not including Florida. 

While on this point, I will state some other 
facts, more intimately connected with another 
question in the argument of the senator from 
Kentucky, but which may be as well introduced 



10 



here— I mean (Tip proportion of territory which 
the North and the South have received, especially 
under the Louisiana treaty. 

This part of the honorable senator's argument 
was very well answered by the honorable senator 
from Mississippi, [Mr. Davis.] but I have some 
additional facts to submit. His position was. thai 
the South had no right to complain ol being ex- 
cluded from the territory acquired by the Louis- 
iana treaty; that although an area of so large an 
amount had not been appropriated to her under 
the operation of the Missouri compromise, still 
she had received territory that was much more 
valuable. But. sir, the disparity is too great 10 be 
compensated by the dillerence of valuation on the 
different sides of the line; the difference is im- 
mense. 

The senator from Kentucky says the South sot 
the best part of the territory acquired by the Lou- 
isiana treaty, which he considers, 1 think justly, 
ow best title toOreson- L< t us see how this mat- 
ter stands. This territory, Louisiana and Oregon, 
consists of: 

Oregon ... 

Northwest Territory- 
Indian Territory 
States of Louisiana, Mis- 
souri, and Arkansas - 



Total 
States 
Territory 



341 .4'~3 square miles. 

723.22S 

248,851 " " 



166,004 



- 1.479.365 

- 166,004 

• 58,346= -"lave 224,350 

Free 1,255, 015 

- 1479 365 



Total 



Giving 1,255,(115 square miles of free territory, 
and only 224,350 ol slavo territory, or less than one- 
sixth of it. 

This deficiency is not made up by the greater 
quantity of good land in the three States, as the, 
senator seems to suppose. There is as much 
good land generally in the new Territories as in 
Louisiana, Arkansas, or Missouri; perhaps not 
so valuable ptr acre, but in the aggregate more 
valuable ; for though there is much of the finest 
land in the world in Louisiana, Arkansas, anil 
Missouri, still so much of it is rendered valueless 
by sea-marsh overflowing swamps, pine barrens, 
and other lands of little value, as greatly to re 
duce the aggregate value of the whole. It may 
be safely assumed that the territory acquired by 
this treaty, outside of these three States, is capa- 
ble of sustaining, and will erelong have as great 
a population, in general, per square mile, as that 
within them; and when we take into considera- 
tion that 58,346 square miles of this territory, 
south of 36 deg. 30 min., is dedicated forever to 
the Indians, it is clear that the South has received 
no more than one-sixth of this purchase, if indeed 
it be so much, and will have when it is all settled 
and improved, less than one-sixth of the political 
power in it. Already two flourishing Territories 
are organized in it, Oregon and Minnesota; and 
Nebraska and others will soon follow. 

This is the position in regard to territory ac- 
quired by the Louisiana treaty, extending, as the 
gentleman supposes, to the Pacific ocean. 

It is no argument to sa\ that the most valuable 
land has been given lo the South, when you look 
at the vast extent oi territory that is gained by the 
North. At the present moment, to be sure, the 
slave States have an area considerably larger, 



especially if you include Tevas ; hut how will it 
be when all these States are incorporated? 

Area of States and Territories. 

STATES. 

Square mil- 1 *. 

- 454 : 40 

- 610.798 



Free States - 
S aves States 

Texas 



32o 520 



\()i'h JMirl wrst of Mis- 
sissippi river, east, ot 
K' rk v mount., jns 
W isconsin territory 
Indiana territory - 
Upper California and N. 
Mexico - 



Add to these that part 
ol Texas north ol a 
line from Paso to En- 
sennda, which may be 
considered open for 
the formation of new 



1.065 138* 

i 

-l,390,65St 

TEIIKITrwiES. 

North 36 30. Sou.* KftKQ. 

Sq miles. Sq. miles. 
311,-103 



723,243 
22,336 
190,505 

321,1395 

1,599,247 



53,340 

2U4.383 
262,729 



States - - - - 


43.537 


133,414 


Total - 


1,612,784 


336,143 


About one quarter south 
of 36dey 30 in in., area 
of Pee Slates 

Balance ot Texas after 
the deduction 


450,310 


610,798 
176,950 


Total ... 


2.093.121 


1.. 133.891 



Now, as to making any exorbitant demand by 
the South: We do not come here asking any- 
thing but anvijual participation in that which we 
bore an equal share in acquiring. We do not 
even ask half, although we are halt of the Union, 
and although we have expended half — ay, more 
than half— of the blood and tieasure that were 
expended. We give up to you all the gold, all the 
line harbors — all the advantages, in short; but, 
to save our honor — to save ourselves, if possi- 
ble, from injury hereafter — to prevent ourselves 
from becoming inferiors or dependants — we ex- 
press our willingness to accept this small boon. 
And what is most astonishing, sir, is, that even 
this cannot be granted to us. Well, sir, while 
such tilings as these exist — while so small a re- 
quest as this cannot be complied with — gentle- 
men must not be surprised that the voice of 
the South should come up here, and tell them — • 
and that voice will become louder and louder — 
that this is not the entertainment to which they 
were invited in the formation of this confederacy ; 
that they love the Union, and will maintain it 
as long as they can with honor; but the moment 
they discover that they ate not to enjoy that 
equality which was contemplated at the time of 
the formation of the confedera'cj — I will not say 
what the South will do in such an event; but I 
will say that, so far as I am concerned, I shall 
adopt their action and that of my State, what- 
ever that may be ; I will follow their iead. It is 
not for me to point out what they should do, and 
I will not pretend to say what they will do; but 



* Without Texas. 



t With Texaa. 



11 



I will say, that if they, under the circumstances, 
consider the Union dissolved, and separate them- 
selves from those who treat them with so much 
injustice — an event which I hope in God may 
never happen — but, if it must come, let those who 
deny to us our rights bear the responsibility. We 
ask hut little; we will he satisfied with little; 
we desire but to save our honor; and that we 
will do, let the consequences be what they may. 

Mr. President, I have said all that 1 intend 
in reference to the fir.-t resolution. The next res- 
olution undertakes to decide an important ques- 
tion of law. The resolution declares that, by 
law, slavery does not exist in California. That 
is the resolution, sir, to which 1 chiefly referred as 
being: objectionable, on the around — though there 
are other serious objections to it — that it contained 
no compromise The very first line of the res- 
olution, sir, gives up the whole ground — that 
slavery does not exist by law, and is not likely 
to be introduced. Mr. President, that settles the 
question, according to my interpretation of the 
matter. There are such things as declaratory 
statutes, and this, if adopted, will be, to all in- 
tents, a declaratory statute. Some of those who 
favored the compromise that was proposed in 
1S4S, which passed the Senate, but did not pass 
the House, took the ground that slaves were not 
permitted by law to go there, and some took the 
ground that they were It was admitted, how- 
ever, that it was a doubtful question. For my- 
self, I have bad great doubts on the subject; hut 
if there had been any doubts remaining, they 
would have been removed by the argument of the 
distinguished senator from Georgia, [Mr. Ber 
Eien.] 1 cannot entertain a doubt now, that had 
that coin promise passed both houses of Congress, 
southern people would have had a right to carry 
their slaves there. But the gentlemen on the 
other side afterwards, at a subsequent session, 
took higher ground, and said that the constitution 
did go there propno vigore. In the first place, they 
argued that the constitution did not carry slavery 
there; and ihey now come back and take the 
ground at the constitution does not go there 
at all. But, at all events, the question must be 
admitted to he a doubtful one. I think, if it 
had been permitted to be settled by the Supreme 
Court, both parties would have acquiesced in the 
decision. 

But now, if Congress declare what is the law, 
it can no longer be a question to be taken up by 
the Supreme Court. Why, after such a declara- 
tory act, the question would be settled, call it by 
what name \on please — a Wilmot Proviso or a 
compromise. If the declaration be made ihat 
slavery cannot be carried there, it is effectually 
prohibited, call the act of prohibition by what 
name you will. It (roes to the bottom of the 
quesiion; there is no longer a question left. If 
the gentleman had said, in his preliminary re- 
marks, thai this resolution was intended for the 
advantage of the North, while it gave nothing to 
the South, he would have indicated the true 
character of the resolution; anil I imagine he will 
find it difficult to maintain the converse. No, 
sir; if this is to he a compromise, strike out this 
provision. That is the very matter in dispute. It 
wiil thus be decided, and there will be no longer 
ground for compromise. Strike this out and pass 
the resolution as it isin other respects, and I will 
give it my support. But, sir, I cannot give it my 



support so long as it contains this provision ; and 
I am sorry to say that the coarse of the honora- 
ble senator from Kentucky on this subject seems 
to fall in closely and nearly with that of some 
gentlemen who have taken decided around against 
the southern States. And this question has been 
imitated during the present session. Some prop- 
ositions have been submitted in the other House. 
Correspondence has been published, emanating 
from respectable sources, as will be found upon 
looking into the newspapers of the day. I may 
as well mention the name of a gentleman who 
has been conspicuous* (Mr. Dubs, of the House 
of Representatives. 1 who explains his vote on 
the subject by saying that he did not wish to 
unite all these knotty questions together, and that 
the proper course was to get California into the 
Union— get her senators on this floor; not bring 
the questions all up together, but get California 
here— take one at a time — get California first. 
Now, I was?Mad to perceive that ihe honorable 
senator from Kentucky departed from this rule, 
and said that they should be taken up together; 
but now he seems to have joined with Mr. Duer 
and others who are for separating them. These 
gentlemen are not for granting a boon to the 
South ! Why, the South asks no boon. We 
have not expected any boon from gentlemen who 
have taken such strong ground on the Wilmot 
Proviso, and in every other way against us. 

My object in speaking upon this subject was 
not because I had the vanity to suppose that I 
would influence the action of this body in the 
slightest degree, but because I wished my people 
at home to understand it, as far as my humble 
abilities might serve to portray its several aspects. 
I desire that they should, know and perfectly 
understand that these resolutions were held out 
to them as bread, and are nothing but stone; that 
they not only offer nothing, but are worse than 
nothing; they do not leave any way foi gelling 
round the subject, or for fixing upon future terms 
of concession, or for compromising in any way at 
the present time; they not only extend to the ut- 
most limits of the present question, but to its 
boundaries through all future time. The South 
may grumble and complain as much as it chooses, 
but it can never have an inch more of ground 
in our acquisitions for a slave territory. Now, 
sir, is that a compromise, and a compromise 
, favorable to the South ? If the proposal of such 
i a measure is to be called backing your friends, it 
I is such a hacking up as I for one cannot get 
j along with, and do not desire to have. 

Mr. President, I stated on a former occasion 
| that I had looked forward with anxious expecta- 
| tion to the expression of the views of the senator 
(from Kentucky on this subject; and that an ad- 
i ditiona! reason to that of his great and distin- 
! guished talents and his powerful influence was 
! to be found in the fact of his peculiar participa- 
: lion in the Missouri compromise of 1819-20. 
Rut, sir, the gentleman himself has corrected the 
! error into which I and many others had fallen; 
I and he has assured us that it did not originate 
i with him, neither was it a favorite measure 
j with him, and that therefore he does not wish 
j to he responsible for its adoption or its results. 
He acquiesced in it at the time it was brought for- 
ward, for purposes of conciliation and harmony, 
although he had at that time the same feelings 
' of repugnance to the extension of the institution 



12 



of slavery that he has now ; and if T am not 
greatly niislaken, they are feelings that he has 
always held. I understand him, sir, from his 
outset in r ublic life, at the time when the consti- 
tution of Kentucky was under revision, and when 
a candidate for election to the convention called 
to prepare a new one, to have taken a stand 
against the introduction of slavery into his State. 
I have never heard that he has chained those 
opinions. In his famous speech at Lexington 
he sustained them, and in his still more famous 
letter upon Texas there is no expression of anv 
change in them. Sir, if there were any doubt 
at all as to the gentleman's views upon the ques- 
tion, these resolutions, presented by him for our 
adoption, remove the slightest foundation for 
doubt. And how, sir, I ask, could we expect to 
meet with a compromise from his hands, enter- 
taining these views, that would give to the South 
that which she reasonably asks for? What we 
want is a fair distribution of the Territories in 
issue— simply an acknowledgment of our right 
to carry our slaves into those Territories. The 
senator, on lhat occasion, told us that no earthly 
power would ever induce him to vote for the 
extension of slavery into territory now free. 
Sir, I was grieved, seriously grieved, to find that, 
upon both of the occasions on which the senator 
from Kentucky addressed the Senate, there was 
loud applause in the galleries when the senti- 
ments of the senator, to which I have just 
alluded, were expressed. 1 regarded it as one 
of the most mournful, and unfortunate, and 
unpropitious events that could have happened 
at such a time. I felt that that applause, given 
in approbation of the peculiar views of the hon- 
orable senator, was the knell of all our hopes and 
expectations of compromise, to arise from the 
presentation of his resolutions. It told us clearly 
what we had to expect from that genlleman with 
regard to the pretensions of the South. The 
arguments of the seharor upon that occasion — his 
narration of the true history of the transactions 
of 1819 and 1820 with regard to the Missouri 
compromise, and the general tenor of his whole 
public life from its commencement — all go to 
show how little can he expected from a compro- 
mise to the South coming from such a source, 
issuing from one holding such views. I was 
greatly astonished at the time — conceiving, as I 
did, from his connexion with the Missouri com- 
promise, that something favorable to the interests 
of the South would be offered by him in the com- 
promise he should present — at the positions he 
advanced : but he clearly explained their con- 
sistency with the views that had actuated him in 
his former course upon the subject; and there- 
fore it was a great mistake to expect from one 
entertaining such views anything which could 
inure favorably to the interests of the South, as 
connected with the insti ution of slavery. 

If I had thought of all this before, certainly I 
should not have expected anvthing from a com- 
promise proposed by him. The gentleman, with 
reference to the Missouri compromise, gives us 
his reasons lor not sustaining its application to 
the present issue. At page 28, he says : 

"When I came to consider the. subject, and to 
compare the provisions of the line ol 30 degrees 30 
minutes — the Missouri compromise line — with the 
plan which I have proposed for the accommodation 
of this question, said I to myself, if 1 oiler the line 



of 36 degrees 30 minutes to interdict the question 
of slavery north of it, and to leave it unsettled 
and open south of it, I offer that which is illusory 
to the Sduth — I offer that which will deceive them, 
if they suppose that slavery will be received south 
of that line It is better for them — [said to myself-— 
it is better for the South, that there should be non- 
action as to slavery, both north and south of the 
line— far better that there should be non action 
both sides of the line, than that there should be 
action by the interdiction on the one side, without 
action for the admission on the other side of the 
line Is it not sol What is there sained by the 
South, if the Missouri line isextended to the Pacific, 
with the interdiction of slavery north of it?" 

I think it should be recollected, in arguing 
upon this point, that there are a great many differ- 
ent views with regard to it. Whether the view 
be right or wrong, that slaves could be carried 
there under such a compromise, the South hon- 
estly entertain that opinion. Not only private 
individuals, but public bodies — such as the legis- 
latures of Georgia, North Carolina, Virginia, Mis- 
souri, and most of the other southern legislative 
bodies— deny the power of Congress to pass the 
Missouri compromise line as a constitutional 
power, but they are willing to yield up their 
doubts, a ready offering upon the altar of conces- 
sion, in order that some measure of conciliation, 
alfording protection to southern rights, may be 
agreed upon. 

The senator ought at least to have afforded 
them an opportunity of making the best they 
could out of a compromise that had been twice 
adopted, that had twice given peace and safety to 
the country, when there was almost as much agita- 
tion as at present. We ought not at least to have 
shut the door hastily on this last and perhaps 
only hope of compromise and settlement; hut so 
it is, and we have no more to hope from him. 

The senator, Mr. President, has devoted a con- 
siderable portion of his epeech to the subject of 
disunion. 1 am sorry, sir, that upon such an 
occasion as the present, it becomes necessary to 
introduce such a subject. No gentleman, in his 
approaches to the question at issue, would sooner 
avoid a reference to this fopic lhan myself. Hut, 
sir, upon questions of such magnitude as the 
present, it is not a matter of choice with those 
who engage in this discussion as to what points 
they shall dilate upon ; and therefore it appears 
incumbent on me, on the present occasion, that I 
should present my views generally upon this 
question, as well as the other introduced by him. 

I have remarked, sir, in a previous part of 
mv discourse, that in a question so important as 
this, I did not desire 1o take the lead with refer- 
ence to my State, or indicate what course she 
would probably adopt. 1 am not prepared to state 
what course she will decide upon, as she has 
not yet acted upon the question; but whenever I 
do understand ihe position determined upon by 
her, I trust 1 shall not be backward in carrying 
it out as far as my abilities may serve. I do not 
stand here to dictate to her, desiring rather to 
await her counsel in the matter. I do not think, 
however, that any declaration of sentiment from 
her will render a change of my opinions neces- 
sary to complete agreement between us. I con- 
sider that 1 am put suing the policy that ought to 
be pursued by a representative of Louisiana on a 
question of this kind, anil that tny course will not 
be disapproved. As 1 have said, there has been 



13 



no action as yet on the part of the legislature of 
Louisiana; but opinions have been advanced by 
gentlemen occupying high and important pub- 
lic posts in that State, which may well serve as 
indications of the public mind— opinions which, 
as far as they go, are entirely in accordance with 
my ownviews and which [shall follow until 
better informed of the opinions of my constitu- 
ents. 

Governor Walker, fresh from the people, has 
declared his opinion on the question, and gives 
the opinion of his predecessor, (Governor John- 
son.) who has just retired from office, with regard 
to the subject of slavery. Here it is: 

"But whilst I believe that the Union is not as 
yet in immediate danger, I think the attitude taken 
by some of our sister States affords a proper oc- 
casion for admonishing our northern brethren that 
it may be endangered by the continuance and ex- 
tendon of the agitation. The people of Louisiana 
yield to none in attachment to the Union. They 
take from i f a national name in which they glory, 
an t they owe to ir, under Heaven, the prosperity 
they now enjoy. But this attachment, great as it 
is, has its limits. It is the result of common inter- 
ests and of the existend? of feelings of mutual 
kindness between the various members oi the con- 
federacy, and it will not long survive their lo s 
Glorious as has been the career of the Union from 
its first formation to its present pitch of greatness, 
there has l»een no event in its whole progress so 
truly glorious as its origin. It was formed om of 
dis oidaut elements, and cemented by sacrifices 
made by each of its members, for the common 
good. Its foundations were laid in the spirit or 
concession and compromise, and in that spirit alone 
can they be preserved and perpetuated. 

"Situated as wo are, I think we owe it to our- 
selves, to our sister States of the South, and to 
our northern brethren, to declare that if, unhap- 
pily, the anti-slavery agitation, which has so Ion* 
been i.Uowed to insult our feelings, should be car; 
rred :o the point of aggression upon our rights— 
li the equality between all the members of the con- 
federacy, established and guarantied by the con- 
stitution^ should be destroyed or trenched on by the 
action ol the general government— then we are pie- 
pared to make common cause with our neighbors 
of the slaveholriing Slates, and prmounee the 
Union at an end. For myself, I do not hesitate to 
say that I should look upon the dissolution of the 
Union as the greatest calamity that could befall 
us; but that, great as this calamity would be, I am 
certain there is not one of our citizens who would 
be willing for a moment to weigh it in the balance 
against the dishonor of submission. Under these 
circumstances, concurring in the patriotic views 
of my predecessor, I deem it my duty, as the chief 
magistrate of one of the States whose vital inter- 
ests are called in question by the blindness of 
prejudice and the lawlessness of faction, to invite 
your attention ro the resolves of the people ol Mis- 
sissippi, and to suggest io you the expediency ot 
Louisiana's cooperating with them in an expres- 
sion of sentiments, firm, determined, and unmis- 
takable, at the proposed convention to be held at 
Nashville in June next." 

I heartily concur in the above, and need say 
no more on the subject at present. 

My chief object in referring to this branch of 
the subject at all was to notice some remarks of 
the senator from Kentucky, one of which is so 
singular that 1 think I should hardly be credited 
for stating it, and therefore I will read it from his 
corrected speech. Speaking of disunion he says : 
_ "Will there not be more safety in fighting with- 
in the Union than without it * 



Suppose your rights to be violated ; suppose 
wrongs to be done you, aggressions fob perpetra- 
ted upon you ; cannot you better fight and vindi- 
cate them, if you have occasion to re-ort to that last 
necessity of rhe sword, within the Union, and with 
the sympathies of a large portion of the popula- 
ion of the Union of these States differently consti- 
tuted from you, than you cau fight and vindicate 
your rights, expelled (torn the Union, and driven 
!rom it without ceremony and without authority V 

Now, sir, the singularity of this position of the 
senator is, thaf in c-ise of disunion, or an attempt 
at dissolution, the States may enter into war with 
each other and yet remain in the Union. I must 
confess, sir, that I cannot see how we can fight 
and still remain in the Union. Sir, it would ap- 
pear passing , strange to see the senators from 
Kentucky and the senators from Ohio, for in- 
stance, occupying their respective seats in this 
body, and performing their accustomed legisla- 
tive functions, while their respective States were 
in arms against each other. This must be the 
case, if the war was carried on under the consti- 
tution. Could such a state of things exist here, 
sir, as an assemblage of all the representatives 
of the Union, peacefully legislating and furnish- 
ing the sinews of war, and voting appropriations 
of men and money to carry on the war that might 
be raging between the different parts of the Union? 
Does the senator mean that ? Sir, it could hardly 
be supposed that those who were fighting for 
their rights would assist in a legislative" con- 
clave to furnish the means necessary in order to 
carry on a war of aggression against themselves, 
it could hardly be expected that those who were 
acting on the defensive would in part support 
the armies and navies of their aggressors, and 
still contribute from their resources to strengthen 
and sustain the government that was acting 
against them. What, then, does the gentleman 
mean by righting in the Union ? 1 have always 
understood that the great object of this Union 
was to prevent sectional disputes and fighting 
among its members. Now, sir, it that course is 
to be changed, in order to sustain a position raised 
by the honorable senator, it will become a mere 
pastime for the States to fis;ht in the Union, and 
will not in the least affect the accustomed legis- 
ative action. But, sir, I do not believe that any 
such design was ever contemplated when this 
Union was formed; and, if any other inference 
can be drawn from the remarks of the senator 
on this point than that which I have presented, I 
am sure f do not understand its object or mean- 
ing 

i he senator from Kentucky further informs us 
that, in case of disunion, the slave States would 
be much worse off than they are now, because 
there would be greater opportunities afforded for 
the escape of slaves. Sir, I can scarcely imagine 
how this evil could be much more extended and 
injurious than it is now. Slaves are escaping by 
thousands annually from their masters— how 
many thousands I do not know precisely ; but 
1 believe the number to be many thousands an- 
nually.* Sir, I do not believe that slaves would 

*Mr. Clingman said in his late speech in the 
House on this subject: 

"The extent of the loss to the South may be 
undei stood from the fact, that the number of run- 
away slaves now in the North is stated as beinjj 
thirty thousand, worth, at present prices, little short 



14 



more frequently escape from one State to another,] 
or go off in greater numbers their, they do now. 
The large number that I have mentioned escape 
annually under the operations of the constitu- 
tion — under the operation of most stringent pro- 
visions on the subject; am! yet of how little avail 
is that constitution ! how inadequate to the pro- 
tection of the rights of the southern slaveholder 
are those provisions! We had an instance of 
this in the gentleman's own State. A number- 
of slaves escaped from Kentucky into Michigan : 
agents were sent out after them by their owners, 
and seized upon them under process from that 
State; but a mob was raised who rescued the 
slaves from their pursuers; and owing to thi.- 
detention and unlawful interpostion of those 
agenls, the slaves made their escape. Was the 
constitution of the United States of any advantage 
in this case? Has it been of any advantage in 
.hundreds of similar cases, the frequent occur- 
rence of which has led to the construction of 
the bill now before the Senate for the more 
effectual reclamation of fugitive slaves? Sir, dis- 
union wouid be lor our interests on this point; 
because then, instead of depending upon thedead 
letter and bund of the constitution, as they are 
now forced to do, Kentucky and the other suf- 
fering slave States could take more effectual 
measures for the prevention of encroachments 
upon their rights. 1 do not, then, attach much 
•weight to this argument of the gentleman. But 
the gentleman thinks that it the Union is dis- 
solved, the States will be divided into three con- 
federacies — the southern, the northern, and the 
middle. 1 hope, sir, that that question will never 
have a solution; that the prediction will never be 
verified. But, sir, if dissolution should take place, 
I am very much mistaken if there would be any 
separation into three confederacies. I do not be- 
lieve that any division on the line between the 
free and the slave States would take place un- 
less there was a provision made prohibiting the 
admission of free States into the southern Union. 
On the contrary, sir, I believe her boundary would 
he increased.. A different boundary would exist; 
and however circumstances might shape them- 
selves, 1 believe the valley of the Mississippi 
would never be divided. The hand of Provi- 
dence formed it, and so it will remain forever. 

That valley can never be disunited without al- 
most miraculous revolution of the feelings, and 
wishes, and pursuits of the inhabitants of that 



of fifteen millions of dollars. Suppose that amount 
of property was taken aw;iy from the North by the 
southern States acting against the constitution, 
what complaint would there not be ! — what me- 
morials, remonstrances, and. Legislative resolutions 
would come down upon us ! How would this hall 
be filled with lobby members, coining here to press 
their claims upon Congiess! Why, sir, many ol 
the border counties in the slaveholding States have 
been obliged to yive up dieir slaves almost entirely. 
It was stated in the newspapers the other day, 
that a few counties named, in Maryland, bad, by 
the efforts of the abolitionists within sis months, 
vipon computaron, lost one hundred thousand dol- 
lars' worth ol slaves. A gentleman of the highest 
standing from 'Delaware assured ine the other day 
that that lit'le State lost, each year, at least that 
value of such property in the same way. A hun- 
dred thousand dollars is a heavy tax to be levied 
on a single congressional dittiici by th* abolition- 
ists." 



section of the country. The pursuit* and avo- 
cations of the people living in that valley entirely 
forbid the adoption of such a course. This ques- 
tion would be settled there by the will of the ma- 
jority; and it is clearly evident that in the valley 
of the Mississippi the strength of the South is 
overwhelming, and will continue so for a long 
time at least. Left to herself, the interests of 
the entire South, and of course of the inhabitants 
of this valley, would be identified, and their ac- 
tion united and cordial. Although some little 
disturbances and excitement have been gotten up 
On this subject in that valley, yet they have been 
but irritations which would never have been 
thought of but for the example of a few northtrn 
leaders In the case of a division, those portions 
of the valley where slavery does not exist would 
be in a minority, whose every interest would 
demand that they should unite with the majority 
in one confederation. 

In such a Union, effectual measures would be 
taken to prevent the aggressions that are now 
so justly and so frequently complained of. But, 
sir, this confederacy w^uld not only embrace 
the valley of the Mississippi, as it is called, but 
other States, which at present wield great power 
and influence in this Union. There is another 
State, the State of Pennsylvania, which, I believe, 
would join the southern confederacy. In the val- 
ley of the Mississippi is to be found the outlet of 
the manufacturing products of one of her most 
thriving cities. She derives ninety-nine out of 
the hundred dollars made in her extensive fac- 
ories in Pittsburg and elsewhere from the inhabit- 
ants of this valley. Yes, sir, the masses of Penn- 
sylvania have never yet joined in this crusade 
against the rights of the South, and I do not be- 
lieve they ever will. Some of her politicians 
have endeavored to follow the lead of the North ; 
but the people of the great Keystone State are 
waking up to a sense of the intrigues and de- 
ception of those heartless demagogues, and are 
taking this matter in their own hands; and I do 
believe, that if ever dissolution comes, the great 
masses of the people of Pennsylvania will be for 
uniting with that portion of the Union with whom 
they have ever remained on terms of peace, and 
with whose pecuniary interests their own are, 
and will continue to be, identified — thus in- 
creasing to a still higher degree their prosperity 
and power, by furnishing the South with her man- 
ufactures exclusively, which already character- 
ize her as one of the leading members of the 
Union. 

Sir, this is not mere conjecture. I saw a letter 
within a few days from a respectable gentleman 
in the State of Pennsylvania upon the. subject of 
our present troubles and of the dissolution of the 
Union, in which he says, if it ever should come, 
Pennsylvania will stand by the South. Her pe- 
cuniary interests, her commercial prosperity, de- 
mand it. 

A few words with reference to another point 
advanced on this subject, and I have done with it. 

The senator from Kentucky further states, that 
if this Union were dissolved, it would not be sixty 
days before war would commence. I do not in- 
tend to make any boasts of southern valor com- 
pared with northern valor. Americans from all 
quarters of the Union all fight with equal per- 
severance and energy. If there is any dif- 
erence between the North and the South, it 



15 



is that the North are a little more careful to 
know what they are fighting about, whilst we of 
the South go into it without much reflection. Our 
northern friends are more prudent — more wise; 
they are as brave, but they consider the cost. So 
they will do in case this Union is dissolved; and 
when they come to count the cost, they will rind 
that there is not much inducement to fight — not 
much to be made by fighting. War is not a money- 
making business. There never was much money 
made by it, and never will be. Even in the case 
of the party (hat proves victorious in war, they 
lose ten times more than they sain The New Eng- 
land people are a wise, a trading people ; and I ven- 
ture to say 'hey will never go' into such a fight ; 
and even if they had an expectation of gaining ever 
so much, [ am sure they would not be for engaging 
in such a war. I am satisfied of it. 

[Without concluding, Mr. Downs here gave 
way for a motion to adjourn.] 

Tuesday, February 19, 1S50. 

The same subject being again under considera- 
tion, Mr. DOWNS resumed and concluded his 
sjeech as follows : 

Mr. President : When the Senate adjourned 
yesterday, I had just concluded the few remarks I 
had proposed to make on that part of the speech 
of the senator from Kentucky [Mr. Clay] which 
referred to disunion, and the first point I propose 
to take up this morning is intimately connected 
with that subject. It is the interest which the 
northern part of the Union have in the preserva- 
tion and perpetuity of this Union. 

There is no doubt, Mr. President, but that all of 
03, of every section, are deeply interested in the 
Union; but still there may be a difference, and 
there may be a greater interest in its preservation 
in one quaiter than iu another. The section of the 
Union to which I belong desire and have received 
no advantages, no exclusive privileges, to accrue 
1o them from the Union; and in the consideration 
of matters of the importance of the questions now 
before us, and the consequences which may result 
if we unhappily are not able to adjust the dihicui 
ties which now exist among us, it can do no harm, 
and it may do some good, to look at the interests 
connected with these matters, and see where the 
greatest interest, as connected with the perpetuity 
of this Union, is. 

I have here some statements taken from official 
sources and published at the North, showing the 
interest of that portion of our country in the Union, 
so important and striking that I will submit them. 
1 make no apology for their length : they are too 
valuable to be shortened. There is not a word too 
much. They contain, too, facts, arguments, and 
sentiments, much better and more forcible than 1 
could give. They ought to be well rweived at the 
North; for they do not come from the South, but 
from those of their own people who best under- 
stand their interests. They are taken from a recent 
number of the Democratic Review, and I suppose 
were written by the able author of the valuable 
commercial articles of that periodical: 

'"The formation of the cotton States, with Cuba, 
into a great cotton, tobacco, suiiar, and coffee-pro 
dtfcing union, calling lortb il 

Cuba, and renovating the West India islands, with 
tha labor ol the blacks ol the - jutbern States, in those 
bands in which their labor and numbei thriv- 

en so well, and this empire annexed to Entain by 



treaties of perfect reciprocity, giving the latter com- 
mand of the eastern commerce by way ol Nicaragua, 
and all the benefits of possession, without rhe respon- 
sibility of slave-ownership, would be a munificent 
exchange for the useless province of Canada. The 
■separation of the North from the South, under the 
imbittered feelings which must necessarily exist be- 
fore its possible consummation, would cut off the 
former from its supply of raw materials, deprive its 
ships of two-thirds its business, ciose the whole 
southern market to the sale of its wares shut up its 
factories, depopulate its Wharves, and reduce it 
speedily to the present condition of Canada. The 
possession of the mouths of the Mississippi would 
give the South absolute control of the West. There 
are those now living in the valley who can remem- 
ber that the possess on of the Delta of the Mississippi 
by Spain w- s fast separating the East and West. A 
delay of five years in the purchase of Louisiana 
would have dismembered the Union, and created a 
separate government in the valley. If the influence 
ol that avenue of trade was so great then, when the 
settlements of the West were lew, and their surplus 
products unimportant, what would it now be, when 
~S5(>, 000. 000 worth of western produce, become in- 
dispensable to England, is annually borne by it to 
market*! With such a connexi ■ u, it cannot be doubt- 
ed that Enyland would return to her exclusive sys- 
tem, and the crushed industry of the New England 
rind Middle States would struggle in vain for reward. 
Nevertheless, this is what desperate sectional politi- 
cians are striving, in connexion with British emis- 
saries, to bring about, seeking their reward in polit- 
ical advancement among a ruined people. 

"if we endeavor to form some estimate of the in- 
terest which the North has in southern prosperity, 
we *v;y bt-gm with the most obvious item, viz: the 
shipping. This is, according to the official tables, 
owned in the following proportions: 
Owned. Registered tonnaje. Enrolled tonnage. Total. 

South :.... 159,956 334.845 494,797 

North 1,001, 930 1,456,314 2,658,244 

Total 1,361,886 1.791.159 3,153,041 

Fishing and whaling.. 190,180 133,338 3-26,018 

"Deducting the whaling and filling tonnage from 
that owned at the iNorth, leaves 1,009,750 registered, 
and 1.322 475 coasting tonnage, applicable to the 
transportation of merchandis-. More than three- 
four'hsol this entire tonnage are employed in the 
transportation of produce exported from southern 
ports. The leading article being cotton, its move- 
ment is as follows : 



1848-'49. 



Exported 
abroad, - 

Exported 
coastwise 

Total 



Bales. 



Pounds. 



891,137,6011 
31-1,129,600 



3,013,168 1,205,267,200 



Tons re- Per Amount of 
quired, lb. freiirhu 



667,425 
209,417 



876,843 



$13,367,064 
1,570,648 



14,947,712 



"This coastwise expo-t is merely the first move- 
mentsouihto north, and dflps not embrace its ul- 
'imate navigation in small vessels As an indica- 
tion of the freight* on other articles, it may be 
seated that tie quantities of the eleven articles of 
sugar, molasses, flour, pole, bacon, lard, beef, 
tad, whiskey, corn, and tobacco, which left New 
Orleans, for the vear 1^19, both foreign and coast- 
vise, required 101, WO tons, and the freights were 
worth S2,-ii>7.74 n . Of the quantities sent coastwise 
of these articles, a considerable p->rr:on was sub- 
sequently exported abroad from northern ports, 
giving a new freight to shipping, inasmuch as 
i ail the exports of the country, 75 percent, 
is bused upon southern produce, and as we have 
seen in the above table, which is irctn official sour- 



16 



ces. nearly all the shipping is owned at the North, 
snd the rates of freight, in usual years, are gra- 
duated by that of cotton, an estimate may In 
made of the whole freights. From northern ports 
these are murh lass' than from the South ; thus 
while the average is about $22 fr~m the South, 
with primage abroad, it i-< ab >ut $7 |)er ton to the 
northern ports. It is also the case, thatves*els are 
built to carry nearly 50 per cent, more than theii 
registered tonnage, and also that many of the voy- 
ages are to the provinces and the West Indies. 
Hence, the average. outward freights are not over 
$15 per ton. The American tonnage cleared from 
the United States in 1343 was 2,461,230, which, 
at $15 per ton allowing two-thirds for southern 
origin, gives the following sums: 

Tons. Northern origin. Southern origin. Total. 

Outward, 

2,461,280 at $15 $12,396,400 
Inward, 
2,393,482 at 8 9,573,923 

Total foreign trade 21,880,328 

Total coast, be- 
tween North 
and South.... '2,000,000 



$24,612,800 

9,573,923 



$30,919,200 
19,147,856 



34,186,728 50,167,056 



6,000,000 8,000,000 



Total 23,830,328 40,180,728 64,167,056 

"The inward freights are of merchandise on which 
the northern shipping makes a freight, the north- 
ern importer and jobber their profits, and on which. 
probably, one-half is sold and paid for at the 
South. In this are included frieghts from Europe, 
South America, and the East Indies, ranging from 
010 to $25 per ton, and forming a large part of the 
whole; so that the average will not form less than 
$6 per ton of carrying capacity, or $3 per ton 
register. The freights of vessels in the foreign car- 
rying trade, from Cuba to Europe, &c, are not in- 
cluded. 

"The imports and exports of the Union were, for 
1343, as follows: 

Imports. 
- fi137.367.826 
17,631,102 



Free States 
Slave States 



Exports. 

$75 985,050 

73,051,386 



Total - - 154,998,928 154,036,456 

"This embraces the large exports of farm pro- 
duce from the North for the famine year, and is 
therefore above an average for that section. Under 
the estimate that one half of the imports are con- 
sumed at the South, then $60,131,633 must pass 
through northern hands, leaving at least fifteen 
per cent, profit— say $9,000,000, including insur- 
ance, Sec. In return for this, an amount of bills, 
drawn against southern exports, must be sold in 
New York, equal to the difference between southern 
imports and ttie amount of their exports— say $60,- 
000,000. The negotiation of these gives a' least 
$1,000,000 more to the North. On data furnished 
by the census of 1840, it was ascertained that the 
value of the manufactures of the New England 
and middle States was $182,945,317, including 500,- 
GOO bales of cotton wop k"d up at the North. Of this, 
one-half, say $90,000,000, finds sale in the southern 
States, and those of the West, which, delivering 
their produce on the great watercourses, neces- 
sarily form part of that region, at a profit to 
manufacturers, jobbers, forwarders, expresses, in- 
surance, &c, of 25 per cent., or $22,250,000. There 
arrived at New Orleans last year, by the Missis- 
sippi river, of produce fiom all the western Siaes, 
a value of $36,U9,<;!>3, and probably $14,000,000 
more found sale in the slave States through smaller 
avenues and at shorter distance, making say 
$50,000,000; for all which was received in r turn, 
sugar, coffee, tobacco, materials of manufacture, 
and domestic bills drawn on the North against 
produce and bills of exchange. These sales of 
produce probably realized 20 per cent, profit, and 



the South that the West pays for its purchases'ol 
goods »i the East. There is also probably $20,- 
000,000 of northern capital, drawing arge profits, in 
southern employments. Stocks, shares of com- 
panies, and interests in firms, which, with the 
amounts expended by southerners coming north in 
the summer season, must yield $6,000,000. These 
rough estimates of the profits of the North by south- 
ern connexion may be summed up 'bus : 
Freights of northern shipping on south- 
ern produce .... $40,188,728 
Profits derived on imports at the North 

for southern account - - - 9,000,000 

Profits of exchange operations - 1,000,000 

Profits on northern manufactures sold 

at the South - 22,250,000 

Profits on western produce descend- 
ing the Mississippi - - - 10,000,000 
Profits on northern capital employed 
at the South - - - - 6,000,000 



Total earnings of the North per annum $38,436,723 
"These estimates are all exceedingly small, and 
do not embrace a variety of transactions which 
form the basis ot most corporate profits. It might 
also embrace the prolits on sales to western Siates, 
which are enabled to pay by tb^ir sales to the 
South. Wow, when we reflect upon the whole ,of 
the transactions out of which spring these profits 
enumerated, and also the employment of a very 
large proportion ol the northern people, as well as 
one-half of the whole external trade of Great Britain, 
with all those remotely dependent upon the per- 
sons actively engaged in the trade, we begin to 
form some idea of the magnitude of the crime 
premeditated by the Van-Buren free-soil-abolition 
party. 

"If we throw together the capital and number of 
persons directly occupied in the manufacture of 
cotton, with the number of bales required annually 
to keep them in employ, we arrive at something 
like the following result : 

Bales con- 
sumed, 1849. 
G- eat Britain, -1,81^,422 
Europe, - - 983,943 

United States, - 520,000 



Hands em- 
ployed. 

480,000 
233,000 
160.654 



Capital in- 
vested. 

$366,0.(0.(100 
183,000,000 
122,000,000 



Total- -3 323,365 873.6.J4 671,000 000 

" f this large consumption, 2,800,000 bales were 
furnished by the southern States, and they support, 
through the prolits of its fabrication, not less than 
4,000,000 whites; and the cloth so produced fur- 
nishes comfortable clothing to millions more, who 
otherwise would sutler from want of it. It by any 
convulsion the supply of raw material should be cut 
off, how wide-spread would be the resulting des- 
titution and ruin to all nations ! 

"A separation of the Union wou'd involve the 
immediate connexion of the whole South, with 
Mexico and the West Indies, with England ; and, 
under the exasperation that, would inevitably at- 
tend such an event, the North— its ships, goods, 
produce, and traffic— would at once be excluded. 
The rigor of that British exclusive system which 
before drove the independent northern Stales into a 
union with the South, would apply with tenfold 
force ; and while the South has now become neces- 
sary to every country of Europe, the North has 
nothing to otfer, being, in fact, a rival to each and 
all in manufactures. The areas of the free and slave 
States are as follows: 

AREA OF THIRTY STATES, WITH LANDS SOLD AND UNSOLD. 



Free, 



it is from the proceeds ol their sales of produce to t Slave 



Area, 
acres. 



,600 



Area sold 
in new 
States. 



Money 

received 
by U. S. 



Dots 
59,007 ,332 91,687,565 



Unsold 

area new 
States. 



199,935,398 



5y9,275,502!41,202,324;45 J 0b5,512|l45,977,945 



Pop- 
ulation 

1840. 



9.918,864 
7^513,008 



17 



"The area of western and unsold, with a large 
portion of that already sold, is entirely commanded 
by the Mississippi and its tributaries, and the pos- 
sessors of its delta are the controlling power. The 
introduction of manufactures is most rapidly pro- 
gressing in the northern slave States ; and as those 
become less able to compete with the more southern 
lands in agricultural productions, the impulse will 
be enhanced, and with greater success that the 
improving prospects of the raw material promise 
to enhance the capital applicable for that purpose. 

"Every year the progress of affairs makes the 
North less necessary to the South, and makes the 
latter more necessary to England and Western 
Europe." 

This, Mr. President, it will be borne in mind, 
is the view of no southern, no sectional, no partial 
mind. There is much more in the article which 
might be read with profit, but I will not take up 
the time of the Senate in so doing. 

These extracts show, Mr. President, the im- 
mense difference between the interests of the tvwo 
sections. And the table proceeds to show that 
almost the exclusive monopoly of the shipping 
interest is in the hands of the North, and that it 
depends almost entirely for its existence upon the 
carrying trade of the South. Afier going on to 
state many of the advantages in trade and com- 
merce which the North derives from its union 
with the South, it gives in detail the different 
sources from which they are derived, and which 
I will not take up the time of the Senate by refer- 
ring to. 

This, Mr. President, is the annual production of 
a trade every dollar of which would be diverted 
from the North by the dissolution of the Union. 
The whole of it can be done with just as much 
advantage to the South by the ships of other 
countries. 

This, sir, serves to show the deep and intimate 
interest and connexion of the North with the 
products of our section of the country. 

Talk about our slave population ! Why, sir, 
the North derives at least as much, if not more 
advantage from the products of our slave labor 
than those who employ it. The owners are al- 
most the mere superintendents of those planta- 
tions for the northern interests. This is no hy- 
pothesis, no mere theory ; it is a matter of fact. 
Go from the South to the North, as I have done, 
and what is the lirst question asked you every- 
where ? It is, how much cotton, how much sugar, 
or how much tobacco is being made this year? 
And they are as anxious — every manufacturer in 
Lowell, or anywhere in New England, is as deep- 
ly interested, and teels as much sol icitude and anx- 
iety, as to the number of bales of cotton that 
are to be produced — as is the cotton-planter him- 
self. And the deprivation of these resources 
would not onlv he an evil to them, but a great 
deal more. With them it is a necessity. They 
could not live, they would starve, without it. 
There is not this great necessity existing so far 
as regards the South. Having a rich country and 
a delightful climate, it would be only changing 
our trade from one channel to another. Even if 
deprived of the advantage of selling our surplus 
productions altogether — which would not be the 
case, as they would only be forced to seek 
another market— by the event of a dissolution oi 
the Union, still we would be better off' than the 
North, and could better provide for ourselves. 
We would have that with which man originally 
2 



started in this world— a virgin soil, and plenty 
of hands to work it— the means to live, if not to 
acquire wealth. And, as the writer from whom 
I have quoted demonstrates, it cannot be doubted, 
that the condition of new England would be as 
bad, if not much worse than that of Canada 
now, with her trade prostrated, looking to us 
to see whether the United States are disposed to 
annex her, (which I believe we are not much dis- 
posed to do,) and with the mother country 
anxious to get rid of her, if she can do so with 
honor. Without, as now, her vessels employed 
in the whole carrying trade and transportation 
of the millions of the productions of the South, 
and deprived of the great market for all these 
productions and manufactures furnished in the 
South, and which surely would be the result 
in the event of a dissolution of the Union — 
yes, sir, I repeat it, New England and the whole 
North would soon be in the same condition as is 
Canada. Sir, this is a subject not for me, nor for 
those from whom I come, to discuss or to look to ; 
but it is one fraught with results so important that 
I do hope that our brethren in the North, who 
are so deeply interested in it, will turn their at- 
tention to it — will cast up the accounts — and 
will see exactly where and how they stand, be- 
fore they proceed further in their labor of dissolv- 
ing the Union. 

There is one branch of the argument of the 
senator from Kentucky which I omitted to advert 
to yesterday, and which I will notice now. I re- 
fer to the resolution of the senator in regard to 
the boundaries of Texas; and 1 will not discuss 
the subject to any extent, because I know it will 
be better done by the senator from Texas [Mr. 
Rusk] himself, who is familiar and thoroughly 
acquainted with the question, and abl6r than my- 
self to discuss it. But there are some points of 
view in which the interests of the whole nation, 
and of the South particularly, are concerned, and 
with which the resolution of the senator from 
Kentucky comes in direct conflict; and I hope 
the senator from Texas will not consider me as 
trenching on his branch of the argument if I ad- 
vert to it for a moment. I allude to the third 
resolution of the series offered by the senator 
from Kentucky, and which I will read: 

"3d. Resolved, That the western boundary of the 
State of Texas ought to be fixed on the Rio del 
Norte, commencing one marine league from its 
rwouth, and running up that river to the southern 
line of New Mexico; thence with that line east- 
wardly, and so continuing in the same direction to 
the line as established between the United States 
and Spain, excluding any portion of New Mex- 
ico, whether lying on the east or west of that 
river." 

Now, Mr. President, the point to which I 
wish to advert is, that this resolution not only 
refuses to give us anything more byway of com- 
promise, but that it takes away one- half of that 
which we gained by the Texas compromise. 
By the Texas compromise slavery was not pro- 
hibited south of 36 deg. 30 min. ; while the line 
proposed in this resolution, commencing at the 
Rio Grande and running eastwardly, would be 
about the thirty-second degree of north latitude, 
and would deprive us of the benefit of the whole 
of Texas lying between the thirty second degree 
and the line of 36 deg. 30 min. While the gen- 
tleman will not go into any new compromise, I 



I 



"hope he will at least adhere to the present "one on 
this subject. So much does he now appear op- 
posed to compromises, and so eager is he to de- 
prive us of the little we have gained by the 
Texas compromise, thatl suppose he would also 
have taken away from us the 50,000, square miles 
that remain of the Missouri compromise, had 
he not found that they had already been given to 
the Indians. 

Another thing : the resolutions of annexation 
have an important hearing on this boundary ques- 
tion. It clearly implies that the portion of ter- 
ritory claimed for Texas east of the Rio Grande 
is to be considered as such, or otherwise the 
compromise as to the degree of 36° 30' would 
have no application. But the line mn by the 
senator, as will be seen by a reference to the 
map accompanying the President's message for 
1848, cuts off the whole of it. So that if "such 
a boundary was contemplated by the act of Con- 
gress, there was no place whatever for the Texas 
compromise. I do hope that when the senator 
comes again to examine this subject, he will see 
that the Texas boundary was acquiesced in not 
only by this act of Congress, but by others which 
have been adverted to in former discussion, but 
with which, perhaps, the senator, having been 
absent from public lite at the time, is not familiar 
— before the war was commenced, or before the 
treaty by which we acquired any country from 
Mexico had been signed, and in the establish- 
ment of post offices and post roads between the 
Nueces and the Rio Grande. And among other 
acts, which show clearly that the boundary 
claimed by Texas is her acknowledged one, is 
the map accompanying the treaty with Mexico. 
To this the senator thinks but little importance 
is to be attached ; but I think it is a matter of a 
great deal of importance. On that map the situ- 
ation of the territory referred to in the treaty is 
clearly laid down. There no part of the territory- 
east of the Rio Grande is represented as a part 
of Mexico, and none of it is so treated at all. 
In addition to that fact, it is stated on the margin 
of the map that it represents the States and de- 
partments of Mexico, a* organized and establish- 
ed by various acts of that repubiic. 

Neither in this map nor in any other portion 
of the treaty is this strip of territory east ol the 
Rio Grande once considered as part of New Mex- 
ico; and therefore, if it does not belong to Texas, 
^belongs to Mexico, and was never ceded by her. 
Yet those who made that treaty understood this 
question, and had this map before them. But, 
however this boundary is settled, I hope we 
shall not be deprived of the portion of Texas ly- 
ing south of 30 deg. 30 min. 

I have had a calculation made of the quantity 
of land lying north of the line proposed by ihe 
senator. The quantity of land in Texas north 
of that line, according to this map, is 124,493 
square miles. That part of it north of 3(3 deg. 
30 min. is 50,000 square miles, leaving a balance 
of 7-1,933, and this by this third resolution of 
the senator from Kentucky is taken off iron the 
territory given us by the Texas compromise. I 
think that to be a most serious objection to the 
resolution. 

Mr. President, I have been induced, from a 
suggestion which I have seen in one of the 
letters of Mr. Madison, to look into the discus- 



sions of the convention which framed the consth 
tution on the subject of slavery, and I have 
found, sir, that this thing of restricting the emi- 
gration of slaves in the United States into the 
Territories was a notion at that time not at all en- 
tertained, or even thought of. In all the exciting 
and protracted debates on the slavery question 
in that illustrious body, it does not appear that 
there was ever a whisper even to indicate that it 
was the intention or idea of any member of the 
convention that the emigration or transportation 
of slaves from one portion of the Union to 
another should be prohibited. 

Here is what Mr. Madison says on this sub- 
ject, in his letter to Mr. Monroe, in lS-20-.j 

"The questions to be decided seem to be— 

"1. Whether a territorial restriction be an as- 
sumption of illegitimate powers; or, 

"2 A misuse of legitimate power; and, if the 
latter only, whether the injury threatened to the 
nation 'from an acquiescence in the misuse, or from 
a ttustation ot it, be the greater. 

"On the first point, there is certainly room for 
difference of opinion; though, for myself, 1 must 
own that 1 have always leaned to the belief that the 
restriction was not within the true scope of the con- 
stitution. 

''On the alternative presented by the second 
point, there can be no room, with the cool and 
candid, ^fot blame in tho-e acouiescing in a cori- 
! cilialory course, the demand for winch was deem- 
ed urgaot, end the course itself deemed not it* 
! reconcilable wiih the constitution. 

"This is the hasty view I have taken oT the sub- 
ject, lam aware that I may be suspected of being 
I influenced by the habit of a guarded construction 
j of constitutional powers; and I have certainly felt 
all the influence that could justly li >w from a con- 
I victionthat an uncontrolled dispersion of the slaves 
now within the United .States was not only best 
for the nation, but most favorable for 'he .-laves 
also, both as to their prospects of emancipation 
and as to their cond ition in the mean ti me. 

"1 have observed, as yet, in none ol the views 
taken of the ordinance of I7S7, interdicting slavery 
northwest of the river Ohio, an allusion to the 
circumstance that when it passed, Congress had no 
authority to prohibit the importation ol slaves from 
abroad ; that all the. States had, and some were in 
the full exercise of, the right to import them ; and, 
consequently, that there was no mode in which 
Congress could check the evil, but the indirect one 
of narrowing the space open for the reception of 
slavps. 

"Had a federal authority then existed to prohibit, 
directly and totally, the importation from abroad, 
can it be doubted that it would have been exerted, 
and that a regulation bavin's merely the effect of 
p. eventing the interior disposition of slaves actual- 
ly in the United States, and creating a distinction 
among the States in the degrees of their sovereign- 
ty, would not have been adopted, or perhaps 
thought of?" — Mr. Madison to Mr. Monroe, Feb- 
ruary 10, 1820. 

Mr. President, I call the attention of the Senate 
for a moment to the first of these quotations from 
Mr. Madison, in which he gives ii as his decided 
opinion that there was no reasonable objection to 
the transporation of a slave from one Slate to 
another; and that whatever our thoughts or senti- 
ments on the subjeel of slavery may be, they 
should not prevent the exercise of this right. 
Now, this is exactly the question presented here. 
It is not a question as to whether slavery shall 
be increased at all, or whether, if it be an evil — 
which I do not admit— it shall be extended or not, 



19 



but a question as to what it is best to do under the 
fact that it exists and cannot be got rid of. On 
this subject, I have presented to you, in the ex- 
tracts I have just read, the opinions of Mr. Mad- 
ison, (and I think they ought to have much 
weight with those who regard the opinions of the 
fathers of this government,) that it is not onlv no 
objection, but desirable, and better for the slave 
himself, ;'.s well as the community, that the slave 
population should be dispersed rather than con- 
fined. The whole controversy here is, not 
whether slavery shall be increased, but whether 
it shall be extended or not. As to the benefits 
resulting to the slave from the extension of the 
institution, I think I may appeal to the senator 
from Kentucky himself. I believe it is generally 
understood that, in the formation or amendment 
of the constitution of Kentucky, he was at that 
time opposed to the further introduction of slaves 
into that State. Well, he did not succeed in secu- 
ring the adoption of that restriction. But suppose 
that he bad, and no slave had been permitted to 
go into Kentucky, would it have diminished the 
number now in the country, or made them hap- 
pier than they are ? Were they not in reality 
made happier, instead of being gathered together 
and confined to one locality, by being allowed to 
go where thev are, and where, as in the States of 
Missouri and Kentucky, they are the happiest peo- 
ple on earth? I ask, then, if the slave, whose 
condition appears so much to engross the sym- 
pathies of certain pseudo philanthropists,^ has not 
actually been made happier in his position by 
being allowed to be transported to those States ? 
All these attempts at restricting the extension 
of slavery, so far from facilitating emancipation, 
have had a tendency to retard it, and to increase 
its ablegate numbers. And the ordinance ot 
3 7S7,"t believe it can be demonstrated, so far 
from' aiding emancipation, most materially re- 
tarded it ; because, if slaves had been allow- 
ed to be brought into Ohio, Indiana, and Illi- 
nois, few in number though they would have 
been, they would have been emancipated and set 
free perhaps before now; whereas, by confining 
them to the. present slave States, they remain 
slaves, and are likely ever to remain so. VV ell, 
as it was then, so it will be now in regard to 
the new Territories. Suppose slaves were allow- 
ed to be carried to California: if, as is contended 
thev would not be profitable there, they would 
soon be emancipated, and thus the 'aggregate 
number of slaves would be reduced But yet 
those who hold this argument, and who expend 
so much sympathy for the slave in his present 
condition, will not allow him to go where, ac- 
cording to their own argument, emancipation 
would be certain to follow him. 

But the chief object I had in referring to the 
opinion of Mr. Madison was to show the truth 
of his suggestion that m all the debates in the 
convention on this subject the idea ot restricting 
the. emigration of slaves from one part ot the 
United States to another was never for a mo- 
ment thought of. When the ordinance of 1787 
was agreed to, the constitution was not in exist- 
ence. At that time, as there was no prohibition 
existing against the foreign importation of slaves, 
the people at the North thought it necessary hat 
some provision of this kind should be adopted, 
as a restriction upon their increase. But in the 



convention which framed the constitution, an-' 
other method to attain this end was proposed, 
and, after much discussion, adopted, as the only 
proper one — that was, after a certain period, to 
prohibit the importation of slaves from abroad. I 
will quote a few extracts from the debates in the 
convention, as conclusive on the points 1 have 
here laid down ; and, first, from the remarks of 
Rufas King — the same who, in 18l9-'20, acted 
so conspicuous a part in the Missouri controver- 
sy, and was the author of the restriction then im- 
posed : 

" Mr. Kins said : If slaves are to be imported, 
shall not the exports produced by the^r labor sup- 
ply a revenue, the better to enable the general gov- 
ernment to delend their masters 1 There was so 
much inequality and unreasonableness in all this, 
that the people of the northern States could never 
be reconciled to it. No candid man could under- 
take to justify it in them. He had hoped that some 
accommodation would have taken place on this sub- 
ject; that, atieast, a time would have been limited 
ior the importation of slaves He never could agree 
to let them be imported without limitation, and 
then be represented in the national legislature." 

He says nothing, as will be seen, about the ex- 
tension of slavery, but only against its further 
importation. 

'"Mr. Gouverncur Morris said: The admission 
of slaves into the representation, when fairly ex- 
plained, comes to this: that the inhabitant of 
Georgia or South Carolina, who goes to the coast of 
Africa, and, in defiance of the most sacred laws, 
of humanity, tears away his fellow creatures from 
their dearest connexions, and damns them to the 
most cruel bondage, shall have more votes, in a 
government instituted for the protection of the rights 
of mankind, than the citizen of Pennsylvania or 
New Jersey. 

"Mr. Rutledge did not see how the importation, 
of slaves could be encouraged by this section. He 
was not apprehensive of insurrections, and would 
readily exeni-.it the other States from the obligation 
to protect the southern against them. Religion 
and humanity had nothing to do with this question. 

"Mr. Ellsworth was for leaving the clause as it 
stands. Let every State import what it pleases. 
The morality or wisdom of slavery is a considera- 
tion belonging to the States themselves. What en- 
riches a part enriches the whole, and the States 
are the best judges of their particular interest. 
The old confederation had not meddled with this 
point ; and he did not see any greater necessity 
for bringing it within the policy of the new one. 

"Mr. Ellsworth said, as he had never owned a 
slave, he could not judge of the effects of slavery 
on character. He said, however, that if it was 
to be considered in a nigral light, we ought to go 
further, and free those already in the country. As 
slaves also multiply so fast in Virginia and Mary- 
land, that it is cheaper to raise than import them, 
whilst in the sickly rice swamps foreign supplies 
are necessary, if we go on further than is urged, 
we shall be unjust towards South Carolina and 
Georgia. Let us not intermeddle. 

"Mr. Pinckney said : If slavery be wrong, it i» 
justified by the example of all the world. He cited 
the case of Greece, Rome, and other ancient 
States; the sanction given by France, England, 
Holland, and other modern States. In all ages, 
one-half of mankind have been slaves. If the south- 
ern States were let alone, they will probably of 
themselves stop importations. He would himself, 
as a citizen of Soutu Carolina, vote ior it. An at- 
tempt to take away the right, as proposed, will 
produce serious objections to the constitution, 
which he wished to see adopted. 



20 



"General Pinckney said, he contended that the 
importation of slaves would be for the interest ot 
the whole Union. The more slaves, the more pro- 
duce to employ the carrying trade. 

"Mr. Gerry thought we bad nothing to do with 
the conduct of the States as to slaves, but ought to 
be careful not to give any sanction to it. 

"Mr. Dickinson said he considered it as inadmis- 
sible, on every principle of honor and safety, that 
the importation ot slaves should be authorized to 
the States by the constitution. 

"Mr. Sherman said it was better to let the south- 
ern States import slaves than to part with them, if 
they made that a sine qua non. 

"Mr. Randolph said he was for committing, in 
order that some middle ground might, if possible, 
be found. He could never agree to the clause as 
it stands. He would sooner risk the constitution." 

These extracts 1 give the more freely, because 
they are not only to the point to which I refer, 
but have an important bearing on the great sla- 
very question in many other respects: among 
other things, they show clearly that unless a liberal 
compromise had been agreed to on that subject, 
the Union would not have been formed. There 
•was, perhaps, some reason in that, though not so 
much either ; because there would be no such 
great inequality in allowing the importation of 
slaves into the South, and the consequent increase 
of representation, when compared with the in- 
crease at the North from the immense emigration 
there, perhaps not expected. Mr. King clearly 
never thought of limiting the increase of slavery 
by preventing their removal from one State to 
another, or that there was any danger of its in- 
crease merely from such emigration, when the 
foreign importation was forbidden. 

There are many other remarks to the same 
purport, from which I might quote, if necessary. 
The question — on the subject of representation — 
was, after this debate, referred to a committee ; 
and on its being reported back, a further debate 
was had on the subject, which led to the provis- 
ion in the constitution as it now stands, allowing 
a prohibition of the importation of slaves after 
1808. 

Mr. President, it is not necessary to go further 
into this debate. Extended as it was, there was 
not a word of it, so far as I have seen, to show 
that in those discussions the question of the re- 
moval of slaves from one portion of the United 
States was ever contemplated or considered even 
for a moment, or that the institution ol the ordi- 
nance of 1787 ever contemplated any such thing 
at that time as to other territory. The only pro- 
per and reasonable restriction on slavery, as then 
considered, was to take place after 1808; and 
that was supposed to have closed the question. 
I contend, therefore, that those who are opposed 
to slavery have no right to impose any restriction 
which the constitution itself did not impose. It 
was with great difficulty, and after a long debate, 
that, in a spirit of concession, the stipulation was 
made in the constitution that the importation of 
slaves should be prohibited after a certain time ; 
and those who engaged in that bond have no right 
to extend it beyond that stipulation. 

Mr. President, I have taken up so much of the 
time of the Senate already on this matter, that I 
must hasten to a close. But there is one view of 
the subject to which I wish briefly to refer, be- 
cause 1 believe it is of much importance, and 
that it lies at the very foundation of the whole 



thing; and that ia what our fellow-citizens of 
the North term the evil of slavery. The opinion 
that it is an evil — sometimes, I admit, inconsid- 
erately perhaps or from associations around them, 
concurred in by southern men — I consider to be 
totally and entirely erroneous. I hold that it is 
not an evil. We profess, in this age, to be a ra- 
tional and a utilitarian people — to laugh at the 
fanaticism, the absurdities, and the follies of for- 
mer ages, and to think that we are wiser than 
they; but when our history is drawn by an im- 
partial pen, and an opinion is pronounced thereon 
by an impartial world, I fear we shall not be con- 
sidered as any wiser than those who have gone 
before us. But, professing as we do to be a wise 
and utilitarian people, and to judge of things not 
by their names, but from their effects and results, 
all must be satisfied, judging of slavery by this 
test, that the opinion so universally entertained at 
the North that it is an evil is entirely fallacious. 
How, sir, are we to judge whether it be an evil or 
not? Clearly, only by its results. Has slavery 
ever made, so far as it is applied to the African 
race in this country, any individual more unhappy 
or miserable than he would otherwise have been? 
If any man can say so, I should like to hear him. 
Has slavery in the United States made one of 
the thousands of the African race brought among 
us more unhappy than he was in his original 
state, or would he derive any advantage by being 
restored to his original condition? No, sir, this 
will not be contended for a single moment. It is 
the only progress the African race has ever made. 
It is a strong proof, if, indeed, it does not estab- 
lish the fact, often assumed and generally be- 
lieved, of the inferiority of the African race.* 
This inferiority is the reason why, when all other 
races of the world have made some progress, 
however little, he alone has stood perfectly still, 
and remained in all his original ignorance and 
barbarism. In Asia, in Europe, and everywhere, 
except Africa, there has been some elevation in 
the scale of civilization — some higher and some 
lower, it is true. Yet there is scarcely a portion 
of this globe upon which there has not been some 
progress in civilization, some advancement, some 
improvement, and some manifestation of the vir- 
tues of mankind exhibited, save among the Afri- 
can race. There has been none of this among 
them, sir. They have made no advancement 
among themselves ; and the only advancement 



*As a proof of this inferiority, I insert here an 
extract from an eminent British writer, entitled to 
the more weight because he seems to have con- 
curred in many of the views of the abolitionists. 
It was published in 1S22, and agrees with the dis- 
tinguished American writers, Doctors Cartwright 
and Nott, and is supported by Holy Writ: 

" In all the particulars just enumerated, the negro struc- 
ture approximates unequivocally to that of the monkey. It 
not only differs from the Caucasian model, but is distin- 
guished from it in two respects : the intellectual characters 
are reduced, the animal features enlarged and exaggerated. 
In such a skull as that represented in plate 8, selected be- 
cause it is one which is strongly characterized, no person, 
however well conversant with natural history or physiology, 
could fail to recognise a decided approach to the animal 
form. This inferiority of organization, with corresponding 
inferiority of faculties, may be proved not so much by the 
unfortunate beings who are degraded by slavery, as by every 
fact in the past history and present condition of Africa. 

" The abolitionists have erred in denying a natural in- 
feriority so clearly evinced by the concurring evidences of 
anatomical structure and experience." — Lawrence's Physi- 
ology, London, 1822. 



21 



they have ever made in civilization, and in the 
comforts and enjoyments of life even, and the 
only step in progress by this unfortunate race, has 
been this very slavery in America, so much de- 
cried. Take any portion of the 3,000,000 of slaves 
in the United States, and compare with a like 
number of their race in Africa, and what a con- 
trast is presented in the relative progress and in- 
crease in numbers ! Contrast them by any of the 
tests of civilization — take them collectively or 
separately— and what a marked difference is pre- 
sented ! Go among; the Africans on their con- 
tinent,and you see them starving, killing one an- 
other, robbing one another, and plunged into all 
the degradation of the most abject state of bar- 
barism, sinking lower and lower, from one grade 
to another, until it is almost impossible to distin- 
guish them from the savage brutes that roam 
their forests. Here you will find them attaining 
a civilization highly creditable to them, and living 
in the comfort and enjoyment attendant on a hap- 
py and prosperous people. Go on the plantations 
among those negroes so much sympathized with, 
and witness their happy and contented condition. 
I have seen their condition in the West, where I 
"was born, and in the extreme South, where they 
are more numerous — I have seen them every- 
where ; and if those who are opposed to the insti- 
tution could see them, as 1 have, in their cabins 
and in the fields at work, ever singing, and almost 
dancing at their labor — the gayest, happiest, the 
most contented and the best-fed people in the 
world — they would at once find other and more 
needful objects of sympathy. They are not only 
immeasurably better off than they would be in 
Africa, where their ancestors came from, but, take 
the whole 3,000,000, and compare them with a 
like number of laboring people in Europe, or 
even in our own northern States, and they would 
not only stand a comparison, but would prove 
themselves superior, so far as the comforts and 
enjoyments of life are concerned. No man denies 
this, who ever went among them and observed 
their condition. We frequently hear the remark 
made, and we are conscious of it ourselves, that 
our slaves are not only a happy people, but that 
they are much happier than we are ourselves. 
They have no care for the future ; everything is 
supplied them ; they have but moderate labor to 
perform ; and when old age and sickness come 
upon them, certain provision is made for their 
support and comfort. Why, some time ago the 
senator from New Hampshire [Mr. Hale] stated 
a faet as showing the character of the female 
operatives of his section — certainly very creditable 
to the parties concerned. It was the case of some 
young ladies who worked in the factories, and 
who were so kind and dutiful to their aged pa- 
rents, and so industrious as to earn money enough 
to support them when they were no longer able 
to work. I admire their conduct; it is highly 
creditable; it is the dictate of nature. I would 
not offend our friends of the North by any com- 
parison between that class of their population 
and our slaves at the South; yet I will tell the 
gentleman that the necessity which devolved on 
those young ladies never would have occurred at 
the South among the slaves, because all those 
contingencies would ha^e been fully provided 
for. Why, if I had time, and it was necessary to 
go into this subject, I couid name a thousand in- 
stances that every day occur on the plantations 



of the South, of the kindness exercised towards 
aged slaves, and the happiness in which they 
live. 

I will mention an instance that I happen to 
know of, to illustrate the statement 1 have made 
with reference to the happiness and comfort 
which the slaves enjoy in their present situation. 
On an estate with whose proprietor I am well ac- 
quainted, there are three remaining of the old 
African race, who were imported into this coun- 
try prior to the year 1S0S; of which class of Afri- 
cans there are but very few remaining in any part 
of the Union. Their several situations — which 
I will state briefly — are as follows : One is a fe- 
male in extreme old age, who, although so long a 
resident of this country, has acquired but a very 
imperfect knowledge of the English language; in 
fact, her ordinary conversation can hardly be un- 
derstood ; and yet, sir, notwithstanding this bar- 
rier to active or peculiar service, which has ex- 
isted during her entire residence in this country, 
she is now in her old age provided with a com- 
fortable cabin, or house, in which to dwell ; has 
a little garden attached, cultivated for her special 
benefit, and is amply furnished with all necessary 
food and clothing. Now that she is feeble and 
decrepid, no work is required of her, or service of 
any kind, further than to take care of some grand- 
children and great-grandchildren, of whom she is 
so proud that if even she was requested to resign 
the charge of them, she would not do it. None 
but herself, she insists, shall attend to their 
wants, or even scold or chastise them, when it 
becomes necessary so to do. Another of them is 
an aged man, who is comfortably provided for in 
a similar manner, who has only to take care of 
his old wife, not an African by birth. The last of 
the three is a man of altogether a different char- 
acter. He is a man of remarkable intelligence, 
who, by his natural quickness and industry, has 
acquired an excellent knowledge of some of the 
mechanical arts. After a life well spent in virtu- 
ous labor, he ceases from his round of daily toil. 
He has acquired, by using economically the time 
allotted him for his own temporal advantage, a 
considerable amount of property; at least, of an 
amount that many a northern man would be glad 
to call his own. He has a house and little farm, 
and horses, cows, and poultry ; and upon several 
acres of his land, he gives employ to his children 
and greatgrandchildren, during the time which 
is usually allotted to slaves as their time of 
leisure or holiday.* Every year the profit accru- 
ing from their labor is augmenting his little stock 
of wealth. I have mentioned these incidents, not 
because they are exceptions to a general course of 
treatment practised towards the slaves of the 
South, but simply as illustrative of the ordinary 
mode in which they are treated. Compare the 
condition of our slaves with the laboring class of 
Americans in the North, and how much superior 
will be found their condition in many respects. 
Why, Mr. President, I was struck the other day 
with an article in a northern paper, wherein it 
was stated that the sufferings of the poorer classes 
were becoming so great in some of the northern 
States, that it was proposed, in order to alleviate 

* By the laws of Louisiana, and I believe in some 
other Slates, slaves are allowed one hour for break- 
fast and two for dinner. Ate the laborers at Lowell 
allowed so much 1 My recollection tells me no. 



22 



the sufferings of the children, that the parent? 
should be soltl into slavery, or bound out to em- 
ployers, in order to raise a sufficient sum for the 
support of themselves and children. This plan, 
sir, was gravely proposed as the only feasible 
way in which the evil could be remedied, by a 
northern editor, in a northern paper called the 
Merchants' Day Book. I will read the article to 
which 1 allude: 

"A remedy for NORTHERN PAUPERISM. — The receui 
report of the chief oi the police?. of'New York, exhibit- 
ing the enormous amount.of squalid want, prostitu- 
tion, and habitual crime in that city, has stricken a 
momentary shame into that portion of the press 
which is incessantly prating of the moral superi- 
ority of the North over the South, glorifying the 
dignity of free labor, and claiming exclusive pos- 
session of the territories of the United States, on 
the ground that the fastidiousness of northern free- 
dom could, never be brought to partake the soil in 
common with slaveholders. They now find it 
staringtuem in the face., from the re] orts of their 
own officers, that there is an amount of degradation 
(shameless and incurable, because beginning with 
the beginning of life) existing within one city's 
iimits, greater than can be gathered in the whole 
population oi the slaveholding States. Some ol 
these presses are. crying out, What shall be done 1 
The New York Merchant's Day Book answers the 
question thus : 

"'Sell the beastly parents of these children into 
slavery. Let out legislature pass a law, that who- 
ever will take these dissolute and drunken parents, 
and. take care oi them and their offspring in sick- 
ness and in health, clothe them, feed and house 
them, shall be legally entitled to their services ; 
and let the same legislature decree that whoever 
receives these parents and children, and obtains 
their services, shall take care of them as long as they 
live.' 

" The editor proceeds to say, with simple truth : 

" 'In the slave States of this country there is less 
of it titan anywhere else in the world. In fact, 
there are no such tilings as poverty, want, and 
siarvatiou among the slaves. Such degradation 
and misery as are pictured in the report of the chief 
of police cannot exist in a southern city.' 

"And this comes, as the editor well says, not be- 
cause of the superior charity and morality of the 
southern people, but because the master is bound 
equally by law, opinion, and interest, to provide for 
his slaves. If be cannot, fulfil this condition, then, 
lor that very reason, the slave immediately passes 
into the possession of one Who can. The editor 
then diaws thisjust and sensible conclusion: 

"'It. is to be hoped, now that these philanthro- 
pists know how miserable and degraded New York 
is — a nd all large free cities are equally bad — 
they will turn their attention to the work of making 
it better, before they make Charleston, Savannah, 
Mobile, and New Orleans worse.' 

"Just and sensible in itself, but it will not be 
recognised where the advice is needed. For the 
moment, these philanthropists will roll their eyes 
and smi'e their breasts ; but the thousands of 
■wretched outcasts in New York will derive no ben- 
efit from their theatrical commiseration, nor will 
the South have any rest from their denunciations 
and aggressions in consequence of this exposure 
of the character and extent of free pauperism. 
Self-emendation is a virtue laborious, painful, and 
costly. They could not hope to attain it speedily. 
Defamation of others can be practised extempore. 
in perfection ; costs nothing; not only involves nc 
painful self-sacrifice, but, to editors like those of 
the New York Tribune and Commercial Adver- 
tiser, is a species' of luxurious self-indulgence." 

Now, sir, I do hope that before the senator 



from New York and other honorable senators get 
up here to read us a lesson upon the dictates 
of humanity, and the wrongs of slavery, they will 
look first fo things at home; and that, in addres- 
sing us upon the evils and while depicting the 
supposed wrongs of the slave in the South, they 
will portray also the real sufferings of the laboring 
classes in the North; and that, in positively de- 
nouncing slavery as an evil, they will substan- 
tiate their assertion by incontestable proofs be- 
fore the coutry and before the world. Sir, I call 
upon the opponents of this system to do so now ; 
and to prove that even the white laboring classes 
in the North— 1 say nothing of the blacks there — 
are as happy, or as contented, or as comfort- 
ably situated, as the blacks in the South. Sir, the 
slaves in the South do not suffer one-tenth part 
of the evils that the white laborers do in the 
North. Poverty is unknown to the southern 
slave; for as soon as the master of slaves be- 
comes too poor to provide for them, he sells them 
to others who can take care of them. This, sir, 
is one of the excellencies of the system of slavery, 
that the slave never experiences the pinching 
wants of poverty. Sir, one may travel through 
the northern States and see thousands of the poor 
and destitute almost without the commonest neces- 
saries of life; but, sir, 1 defy any man to travel 
through the broad area of the fifteen southern 
States and find a single poor slave. There never 
was one, and there never will be one, as long as 
the institution of slavery exists. And yet, sir, 
notwithstanding the superior condition of the 
southern slave over that of the northern laborer, 
gentlemen of the North persist in their denun- 
ciations, and would even have the Union broken 
up, in order that the system of slavery may be 
prohibited. 

Mr. President, there is one fact connected with 
this question of slavery which is strongly pre- 
sented to my mind by the history of the Missouri 
compromise given us by the senator from Ken- 
tucky. One of the most prominent principles 
which we in the South have ever contended 
for, considering it as our only hope, is equality of 
representation in the Senate. At the time when 
the constitution was framed, it was not expected 
that there would ever be a conflict or difference of 
opinion between the different sections of the 
Union. But, sir, it was anticipated that there 
might be a difference of opinion and interest be- 
tween individual States; and therefore the States 
were made equal in this branch of the govern- 
ment. When there is danger, sir, of one portion 
of a country or a nation — and especially of a con- 
federacy like our own — encroaching upon the 
rights of another portion whose internal affairs 
may be somewhat differently managed, some pro- 
vision should be made for the prevention of any 
such encroachment. This provision has been 
made in our government by the formation of this 
body, to act as a check upon any usurpation of 
power by the majority in the other House. It 
defends from all aggression, and repels all en- 
croachments. But, sir, could it have been antici- 
pated, at the time of the formation of the con- 
stitution, that the encroachments upon the insti- 
tution of slavery would have ever been carried 
to the extent they have, I believe, sir, among 
the several compromises adopted would have 
been one that, in the event of any changes oc- 
curring in the slaveholding Slates, so as to lessen 



23 



map which I have so repeatedly referred to. This 
map, I would here remark, is not one of mere 
conjecture, or made up from irresponsible sources, 
but was prepared by the executive department of 
the government at the last session, and was sent 
in with the. last annual message of Mr. Polk, as 
an accompanying document, so that it is perfectly 
authentic and official. 1 will read the statement : 

Square miles. 
The average area of free Sta'e* is - - 30,232 
The average of the tame, including Dela- 
ware, is 2S,529 
The average of New England States is - 10,700 
The average of the same, not including 

Maine, is 5,840 

The average area of all the States is - 35,537 

This ratio applied to the free States would give 
them 26 instead of 30 senators— a loss of 4 ; and, 
if appplied to New England, not including Maine, 
would give 2 instead of 10 — a loss of 8 ; and to 
all New England, 4 instead of 12 — a loss of 8. 
It is no defence of this inequality to say that 
Would this government have gone on prospering j these small States may make up in population 
and increasing in wealth and power? Never, I what they lack in area; for the New England 
sir ; never. Had not that bill been rejected and j States now have in the House of Representatives 



their number in comparison with the free States, 
the equality of the southern Stales should still 
be guarantied. And, sir, this is the only way in 
which hitherto we have b.<en able to defend our- 
selves. We have had no power, had we so de- 
sired, to invade the rights of other-; ; we have 
simply been enabled to act in self-defence. The 
veto power given to the Executive was not for 
purposes of aggression, but for the defence of 
his own department ; and has not the history of 
our country shown the importance and the neces- 
sity of such a power I VVe have been informed 
by the senator from Kentucky that, in 1819, at 
the period when the Missouri compromise bill 
was agitated, a bill passed the House of Repre- 
sentatives imbodying a provision prohibiting the 
introduction of slavery into the State of Missouri, 
and its final adoption was only prevented by the 
action of the Senate. Suppose in that case this 
check of the Senate had not existed, and the 
equality of the South in this branch no longer 
existed: what would have been the consequences? 



the Missouri compromise been adopted, the whole 
of the vast territory in dispute would have been 
swept off to the exclusive benefit of the free 
States. This result was prevented by the action 
of the Senate. I believe, therefore, sir, that it 
is absolutely necessary to the interests of the 
South that this equality should be kept. As long 
as the Union exists, it must remain one of the 
fundamental principles thai bind the several 
States together. Now, sir, allowing that the South 
obtain what they desire with reference to these 
new Territories, we fhall not always he able to 
keep up this balance of power in the Senate; 
nevertheless, we can approach somewhat nearer 
to it; and then, when in that position, we can 
make a determined effort for a re-establishment 
of our equality. Should the numbers of the free 
States progress until the slaveholding States were 
placed in a helpless minority, allowing that there 
was some constitutional provision placing them 
upon an equality with their northern brethren, 
they would become mere provinces. They could 
not be called States — rather dependencies. Tell 
me not of stipulations of the constitution when 
placed in such a situation. I tell you, sir, that 
that people and those States who expect to pre- 
serve their rights inviolate must first have the 
•power to do it. Take away the power, and the 
rights go also. The history of the world in all 
ages verifies this assertion ; and some incidents 
in our own history, during the past few years, 
further establish its truth. 

Sir, let us look at the situation of things, in 
the event that the Wilmot Proviso shall be ap- 
plied to all these new Territories, and that they 
become free. I now consider the South as prac- 
tically in a minority; for, although numerically 
fifteen States, yet Delaware has already abol- 
ished slavery prospectively, and her representa- 
tives, by their votes on various occasions, appear 
disposed to co-operate with the North. I have 
made a calculation, sir, as to the ratio of the slave 
States in size, compared with the free, after all 
the new Territories are divided and organized 
into new States. Here, sir, is the statement made 
up from the valuable statistics unbodied in this 



29 members, about one-seventh of the whole num- 
ber of that House, and one -fifth in the Senate; 
and if there be some compensation in this con- 
sideration now, it is temporary; for the other 
States are capable of sustaining, and will soon 
have, a population equal to theirs, while the rep- 
resentation in the Senate is permanent. 

If the resolutions of the senator from Kentucky 
should he adopted, which make all the territory 
recently acquired from Mexico and half of Texas 
free soil, we may hereafter, if cur brethren of the 
North choose to allow it, (which, however, is not 
probable, for the cry is now that no more slave 
States shall be admitted,) have one more slave. 
State by the division of Texas, by her own con- 
sent. 

There will be a little fraction of territory, it is 
true, south of 30°30 ! , amounting to 58,340 square 
miles ; but that has been appropriated to the In- 
dians; so that we cannot make a State of th.tt 
VVe shall then have only one more new State it 
the most. Now, how wiii it be with the tree 
States? There would remain to them in all ihe 
new territory an area of 1,994,390 suuaie miles, 
which, at a ratio of 3.3,000 (the aveiage of the 
present^ States) square miles to a State, would 
make fifty-six new free States, or, on a ratio of 
50,000 squaremiles to a State, (about the average 
of the new States,) would give thirty-nine new 
States — all free; not a slave State among them — 
not one ! and leaving the South in a minority of 
16 to 54 States ! If the Texas compromise should 
be adopted to the Pacific, there would, at the ra- 
tio of 50,000 square miles to a State, be seven 
slave and thirty-two free States— not quite one- 
eighth. This is surely not asking much. 

But the senator is not willing to giveus this 
compromise; oo we must lose these seven Sti tes. 

Why, sir, here is Rhode Island— I speak of her 

with great respect, for she has r-ertainlv h ne 

of the most moderate in her action with regard to 
the South in that qua er ol m e limon, and 
her representatives here have exhibited a 
corresponding spirit— here is Rhode Island, 
containing only 1,200 square miles, on an 
equality with a State (Missouri) containing 



24 



67,000 square miles. Now, 6ir, is not this a glar- 
ing inequality; And yet, sir, we hear complaints 
of the inequality of the free States with the slave, 
because of the slave representation in the South. 
There is no comparison between them. The 
slaves in our country are the laborers that corre- 
spond to the laborers of the North. These la- 
borers pay the taxes of your country, just as 
the white laborers in the North do. These negro 
laborers are persons, and, according to our views 
of the subject, it is unjust to deprive them of rep- 
resentation, at least in some degree. In fact, if 
the views of northern men were carried out, they 
would all be emancipated, and every one would 
consequently be entitled to representation. 

Why, there is not a parish in my State that is 
not susceptible of, and that will not in a few 
years have, a population equal to that of Rhode 
Island. We have never complained of it. We 
were willing to submit to it; we were willing to 
abide by the bargain, although we cannot but 
feel that it is a hard bargain. Perhaps, if you 
drive us again into an original elementary State, 
a very different compact may be formed. VVe do 
not seek for this result. What we rind written in 
the bond that we have subscribed to, we are 
willing to adhere to; we never violate our obli- 
gations ; yet we cannot shut our eyes to the ine- 
quality which has been produced by the various 
and important concessions that we have made 
from time to time. We know that perfect equali- 
ty is not to be expected in the administration of 
human affairs. There is no such thing on earth. 
It is a chimera. There is no human institution, 
law,- or provision, that was every yet made, or 
that can be made, that will operate with perfect 
equality upon every human being. It cannot do 
it. The different situations in which mankind are 
placed — their different capacities, all the circum- 
stances that surround them— make it impractica- 
ble. AH that you can do is to approximate tow- 
ards equality. Therefore we did not entertain 
the expectation of perfect equality when we en- 
tered into this confederacy, but we desired to 
approach as near to it as we could. But every day 
that passes clearly shows that that inequality is 
becoming greater ; because the disparity between 
the larger and the smaller States is increasing. 
No such small Slates are now formed as were 
originally admitted ; but the inequality between 
the"n and the larger States must continue to in- 
crease. 

Now, I do not pretend to say that this would 
produce perfect equality; but I do say that when 
the balance of the new States increase as the 
others have heretofore done— and some of them 
are susceptible of much extension, and of pro- 
ducing greater resources — I do say that the in- 
equality will be enormous. 

Now, I ask you, sir, and I ask the Senate— I 
ask the country, and I ask the world—to say 
whether it can be expected, under such circum- 
stances, that we should sit down quietly and 
acquiesce in a course the results of which would 
be such as are here stated ? 

Mr. President, the history of the relations of 
the North and the South, on the subject of sla- 
very, may be stated in a few words. In the old 
confederation, the slave States, being in a ma- 
jority in numbers, in population, and in area, in a 
spirit of unsuspicious liberality, gave up, from 



their own resources, to the common fund, the 
finest and richest spot of virgin earth of the 
same size on the globe, now composing the five 
S'ates of Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, Michigan, and 
Wisconsin, and gave it not only to the common 
treasury, but to the dominion of free soil, by the 
ordinance of 17S7. In the formation of the present 
constitution, they gave up the right to import 
slaves after 1S0S— an important political right, 
since representation was, in some degree, based 
on that class of the population. In 1819, when 
called on for another concession, they gave up 
again, to free territory, five-sixths of the vast 
domain acquired by the Louisiana treaty, though 
warned by the vote just before given in the House 
of Representatives that to do so would be giving 
up the only defensive power they had in the gov- 
ernment — the Senate — to resist encroachment. The 
free States, instead of having anything to complain 
of on the subject of representation, have now, in 
the most important branch of the government, 10 
senators — and if you include New Jersey and Del- 
aware, which ought to be included, 14 senators — 
on an area not larger than Virginia, Louisiana, or 
Missouri — some of the States from which these 
senators come not being larger, or having greater 
natural resources, than many counties in those 
States and many others. You, the North, gave us 
Florida in 1S19; but this only supplied the place 
of Texas, which you gave away in the same 
treaty. When you got back Texas, you took 
half of it for free territory, and now want to take 
more of it for the same purpose. In 1S4S the Union 
acquired the immense domain of California and 
New Mexico. We do not ask for an equal division 
of it; we do not ask any of its gold or fine har- 
bors. VVe ask but two-fifths of it, which would 
leave us only about one-seventh of the new terri- 
tory out of which States are to be formed, or, to 
count by States, 7 to 32 States. You say, no, you 
must have it all, and have already seized upon the 
best part of it. You say you must do this to equal- 
ize representation, though we have demonstrated 
to you that you have greatly the advantage of us 
in that respect already, and have no reason to fear 
us ; for if we should acquire all the power we 
wish, it only enables us to resist encroachments, 
and not to perpetrate them, for you would still 
have the ascendency in the House of Represent- 
atives and in the executive. You say you do this 
to prevent the increase of slavery. We ask no in- 
crease, and we show you that extension makes 
the slave more happy. This is the true state of 
the case — the history of the past and the present. 
I hope it may never be incorporated by some fu- 
ture Gibbon into the preliminary chapter of a his- 
tory of the decline and fall of an empire greater 
than that of Rome. In your hands, people of the 
North, the destiny of this republic rests. You can 
do with it as you choose; destroy it, or make it 
prosper more than it ever yet has. If you destroy 
it, perhaps both sections will suffer, but you must 
suffer iniinitely the most. Pause, then, we ask 
you — not so much on our account as on your own 
— in the career which you are now pursirng. It 
is not yet, I hope, too late ; but soon it may be. 
VVe make no threats ; we speak not in anger, but 
in sorrow. VVe wish only to speak to you like 
brothers. We hope, we pray to God, you will 
listen to us in the spirit in which we speak, and 
that this strife between us will cease forever 



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